Pain Awakened
by Nori Naidisbo
Summary: Commander Shepard threw herself into the synthesis beam for the galaxy, sacrificing the life she could have had with the turian she loved, to give the people she's fought for a chance at a new beginning. However; this isn't the first time that she's died, and the galaxy still needs Shepard, just as much Garrus does, so she's been rebuilt...again.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer – I do not own any rights to the Mass Effect series. This is not for any profit._

**Chapter 1 - Awakened**

* * *

_Pain…_

In a fall of never ending seconds she is _pain_. It is her name. It is the body she inhabits. It is the essence of her existence. It is the awareness of one specific idea and nothing else. No memories. No thoughts. Just '_pain'_. For one agonizing incomprehensible moment she is conscious of nothing else. 'It' is 'she' and there is no conception of them being separate. In this ceaseless span of time '_Pain'_ is alive.

_Light…_

_Sound…_

_Breath..._

_More Pain..._

_Body… _

_Limbs… Lungs…_

_Fear... _

An emotion, not just a sensation, and in the split second it took for her to recognize it, the emotion consumed everything, overpowering her senses. It had no logic behind it, and its existence was incomprehensible, yet it shattered the fog that consumed her, as if searching for a purpose.

_Shepard..._

A name, an idea, and a thought later, she became a person. They connected, tumbling together seemingly without form until she recognized the entity behind them. _Commander Nora Shepard_. Was that the reason to be afraid? No, it wasn't the _reason_; it was the source of the fear. No, that wasn't right, either. It _was_ the entity that feared. She! _She_ was Shepard! It felt right to her that name. What a seemingly innocuous but powerful thing; a name. For within moments of its being confirmed her mind fell into order, memories ground through conscious until they were whole.

_Normandy…_

Was it another person? No, it was a thing, even though at time it seemed sentient. It was a home, wasn't it? Her home? She knew it was a truth, an unfounded, indisputable truth, and yet, it seemed, half of one whole. Incomplete, this thing lacked a presence, like a flying vessel without its wings. Wait! A _ship_? Yes a ship! A space ship! She recalled the gentle hum of the craft, as it took her to destinations unknown. It was a song of belonging, in her mind. Its reverberations were a lullaby, soothing rattled nerves, and telling her that this was_ home_. Home; where she had found no other. Family, friends, love. They existed here. Faces fell before her, some eliciting smiles while others, upon recognition, flooded her with sadness. Why?

_War… _

_Blood…_

_Death…_

These words left a bitter taste on her tongue, for they were more than mere words, they were memories. Those faces…she understood now. Some of them were gone. Pain of a different kind, but pain nonetheless, washed over their images like tears pooling in eyes that refused to shed them. She was Commander Shepard. She was supposed to be strong, but tears meant weakness. Weaknesses get people killed. People died anyways. _Shame, guilt, pride, hope, failure_…. These faces were the result, the source, and the cause. They were a reason to fight, a reason to avenge, and a reason to protect. From what?

_Reapers…_

They were the cause, those horrible myths falling from the skies and decimating life. They emerged without cause, like a silhouette from a nightmare that had somehow become all too real. Standing in its shadow stood Shepard, so comically small against the backdrop of their mass. She was a woman faced with impossible odds, trying to prevent the destruction, while simultaneously failing to understand their purpose. In the end she'd found one and only one, and the entirety of it was enough to fill her with a conglomerate of emotions. Their purpose was to obliterate the organics and synthetics. Her purpose was to stop them. So she did so in the only way she could.

_Synthesis…_

Three choices stood before her._ Destroy_, _Control_, and _Synthesis_._ Destroy_ opposed everything she'd fought for, even if it was the destruction of the enemy, because it took so many other things with it: EDI, the Geth, all technology everywhere. The machines could be rebuilt, but then the chaos would start again. Or so the Catalyst had told her. _Control_ seemed the better option but with it was knowledge: _no person was capable of controlling death, not even she. _There was also the fact that the Catalyst had already sunk its teeth in her. How soon would it be before they turned that power against her? No, the option was filled with too many variables, and all of them were negative. So that left one last option: _Synthesis_. It was a chance at life. It would be a life both new and different, but still, a life for all of them nonetheless. This was her purpose, to prevent destruction, to fight for life – whatever small glimmer of it that still existed in the galaxy – because life was everything worth fighting for. So she'd fought for it. She'd fought for _him_.

_Garrus…_

Remembering his name brought love to the forefront of her mind. A sob of loss quickly followed. A weakness, yes, she knew, but she also understood that this particular man was worth it. He was worth a little weakness for all the strength he inspired in the cold forgotten depths of her heart. He was an undeniable feature in the center of her galaxy. She loved this man, beyond the passion with which she fought for this galaxy. For him she would have destroyed, and had on more than one occasion. For him she would die, which she did, without the slightest reservation. He was the center of her galaxy, and for him, for the soul that kept her moving, kept her believing, she would - what was it EDI had said? – "Risk non-functionality for him."

She had died once before, to save a friend – closer to a brother – from the instruments of the reapers: the Collecters. She remembered the cold that crept along her limbs as she comprehended her fate, floating through the wreckage of her beloved ship and into the depths of space, wrenching against a leak in her suit which she had no hope of fixing. She'd died, come back to life and had found the man who had once been only a friend, but had become so very much more. It'd been upon remembering this man as she'd limped towards a beam that would prove to be her final destination. It was at that moment that she'd realized she was sacrificing her life for more than just a purpose, for more than just a cause. She'd done it out of weakness, because sometimes weakness was a person's greatest strength, as he'd become hers. She'd done it for him, because he inspired her to be_ more_ than just Commander Shepard. He made her brave enough to be alive; truly alive. He had made her want a future, not just a fixture of one bloody battle after another in an ineffectual war against an insurmountable enemy. For the first time in her life she had wished she could be normal, in a normal world, because then she wouldn't have to face this decision. She wouldn't know exactly what she was going to choose, and just how hard it would be to make that choice.

She wouldn't have known that – as she tossed her gun to the side and ran towards a certainty of death, throwing herself into the abyss of her own destruction without remorse – she'd be brave for no other reason than to make him proud. She wouldn't have burnt into nothingness in the passage of a moment with a smile on her face. She'd thought of him in those last moments. Of his thrumming voice vibrating with emotion as he told her that he loved her for the first time. Of the way his laughter made her so very happy to be there, in that moment, sharing her life with him. Of the differences between their bodies, and how fascinated she'd been as they joined in way that she thought would be the death of her. Which she'd then realized that it really had been the death of her before she realized to a further extent that she hadn't regretted a moment of it. She could never regretted him. _He_'d made all the difference. _He_ saved the galaxy, simply by existing in hers. Garrus was her incentive to jump, even upon knowing that she'd never stop falling.

She'd died believing that he would live. And that, in that moment, had been enough.

Her mind halted, processing that, tethering her mind to the present once more. Dead, she was dead. So then why was she thinking? Was this heaven? Was she going to look up, see a bar, grab a seat, and watch over the man she loved as she savored a glass of whiskey? Was she going to be able to wait for him as promised? Then why was there pain? Why would she be in pain if she were dead? Was she in hell? For a moment she was filled with rage that even after all her sacrifice, even after all her fighting for what's right, she was still going to be punished for cheating death.

No, no, no. She refused to believe that. Hell wasn't an option. She considered the only other thing, however improbable, that was: She was _alive_. She'd made a living out of doing the impossible, why should her death be any different?

She'd felt pain for so long, that when it stopped, she felt fear. Fear that she was just dying all over again, or that she'd never stopped. She took a sharp breath – out of some instinct to persevere – and that simple action instilled such hope, such wonder, that tears leaked out the corner of her closed eyes. Alive! Her mind screamed out, shocked beyond her mortal functions. After everything she'd gone through, a new life with Garrus – a chance that she thought had been forever taken from her – now appeared within her reach.

Garrus! His name and all the wonderful things that accompanied it filled her to the brim. They pushed her forward. They became the reason to fight against the darkness, as they had been once before. They became the reason to shatter the stillness that was her body. She moved, fluttering her fingers and toes, moaning at the pins and needles sensation that wracked her as she became aware of herself. She, with the same determination that embodied her in her fight against the Reapers, flung open her eyelids and faced the blinding light. She would not be denied this hope that echoed through her body, thrumming like his voice once did, encouraging her to wake. She had died for that voice without hesitation; she would do no less for the chance to hear it again.

Shapes came into focus, at first blurred, but eventually gaining definition. She could identify nothing, but at least now she could tell _something_ was there. When she tried to lift herself, her muscles refused to cooperate. They lay lax on her bones, and she cursed them, focusing as much of her will as she could to get them to function. This body would not betray her! She _must _succeed.

A battle cry erupted from her unused throat, and she flung her upper body up, grasping wildly for purchase with deadened arms. Said arms were gripped by strong hands, obviously unhindered by weakness, which proved immovable as they pushed her stunned body back. She started thrashing, screaming, and crying at this frustrating resistance. She could not fail! She focused on her purpose, and her instincts rose to drive it, coursing through her veins faster than the hot blood that filled them. She was alive. She didn't know how or why or for how long, but she was alive. Nothing was going to stop her; not pain, not fear, not death. She's going to destroy these bastards restraining her to the bed. Freedom dangled in her grasp and she cursed her own body for being too weak to take it. She was going to obliterate whatever stood in her path, and that was a promise. Right now that consisted of ripping her right arm from the grip that held it and landing a solid right hook to whatever poor sucker was stupid enough to put his face in the path of her fury.

Her ears popped and she gasped as voices rushed to fill the silence.

"Hold her down! She'll hurt herself!"A woman with a British accent chastised. Shepard turned slightly, even as she wrestled with the mass above her, but still saw little more than a figure dressed in grey.

"Dammit, Doc!" The one above her said, growling, when she landed another solid punch. "What do you think I'm doin'? Taking a siesta? Did you not see this Gato Del Inferno almost take my eye out?" Said the behemoth holding her down who was huffing as he struggled with her flailing limbs.

"Oh, quiet down and do as I ask Mr. Vega!" The woman's British voice held poorly disguised amusement and exasperation.

She heard indistinguishable mutterings from the general area of the face she'd just punched. She kneed the source of that voice in the gut, taking satisfaction in the grunt and gasp of air the person emitted before she jumped away from the man currently cursing her mother in Spanish. She snarled when she rolled back to her feet, glaring at the two people before her. A haze of red blurred their faces even more before she realized that the red was her blood. She distractedly whipped at the hot liquid flooding her eyesight, trying to clear hear vision and wincing as her fingers glanced across the cut on her forehead. When she'd snapped up, she'd smacked her head on a examination lamp – the same lamp now laying upon the floor which she'd tripped over in her scramble to get away.

It was due to this diversion that she didn't see the third person in the room before it was on her, tackling from the side, catching her unaware before pinning her to the ground with the weight of their body. She gasped disoriented, before thrashing and struggling futilely against her captor. She worked her legs up between them and pushed out, using their own weight against them. The person above her lost their grip and stumbled away. She scrambled to her feet but not before a hand – a three fingered hand? Why was that so familiar? – grabbed her wrist, spun her around, and pressed her chest against the wall while trapping her and her arms between them as they pressed hard against her back with their own chest, stilling her erratic movements.

It chuckled, making her pause in confusion. It should not be chuckling at this moment. She longed to beat the owner of that chuckle to a pulp. Taking her stillness to its advantage the person behind her leaned closer, putting the side of their face next to hers before whispering –_'More like purring'_ she thought, infuriated – in her ear, "You may be flexible as ever, but you forget, love, that I still have the _reach_."

She froze hearing that and the reference was not lost on her. Reach and flexibility. Those two words she recognized instantly from a private joke. One that referred to her blatantly awkward attempt to seduce the man she loved. It was _their _joke, something to chuckle over as they explored the truth of the words in and out of the bedroom. Only two people in the world knew that joke, and only one of them said it with that double lay of harmonics to his voice.

"Garrus," She gasped with so much surprise and hope that she would have collapsed to her knees were it not for the strength of the Turian behind her keeping her standing. The man she had fought for, died for, and then came back alive – again! – for turned to nuzzle her jaw line with his warm plated lips. He breathed that wonderful chuckle again, making her hair flutter against her cheek.

"Welcome back to the land of the Living, Shepard," Garrus murmured, his mandibles tickling her ear as he spoke, "Did you miss me?"


	2. Chapter 2

_**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Mass Effect Series.**_

**Chapter 2**

* * *

**(Eight months before awakening. Three weeks after Shepard chose synthesis.)**

Garrus considered himself a reasonable man. It was a well known fact that, because of his reasonability, Shepard had helped him understand the act of mercy with nothing more persuasive than a few softly spoken words. Damned if the woman didn't know him better than he knew himself, though. Sidonis was just one example in which Shepard had risked herself for Spirits only knew what greater good. She was always right, he'd give her that. He was very reasonable, especially when it came to his CO, and he liked to think that his ability to concede to a greater argument was one of his finer qualities. _Except for_ _presently,_ he thought sourly, _reason was becoming a concept I'd rather chop into minuscule bits and toss out the closest air lock._

His back was beginning to ache from his position on the floor in front of the mess hall elevator, but he didn't plan on moving any time soon. Nope, him and the three remaining bottles of bitter Turian liquor Shepard had given as a gift during that human holiday – what had she called it? Chrisfuss? – were staying right there. He was pretty sure that the three other bottles – decidedly empty of course – in the package of six had rolled away to parts unknown of the Normandy SR-2, but he was keeping these three bottles right here, where he could nurse their contents until he worked himself into a fine stupor.

Maybe by then he'd stop being so angry at her. Maybe then he wouldn't hate himself for letting her leave him behind on that final mission. (The image of her beautifully sad but serene face disappearing behind the Normandy's docking bay door haunted him even now.) Maybe then he wouldn't want to tear into Joker for leaving her behind for a second time, ripping him limb from limb until the cripples bones were scattered over the CIC .They'd be a pair –Joker and Garrus– two men broken into pieces after the death of Shepard; except he'd make sure the analogy was a literal one in the pilot's case. Maybe at the bottom of that third bottle he'd stop seeing _her _name up there on that memorial board. Maybe, by then, he'd stop wishing that he'd see his own name up there with hers.

Curse that woman for being the martyr she is! Spirits, why did the one person in the galaxy that he actually gave a damn about have to be so _noble_!? He didn't know what horrible endgame had presented itself up on that crucible, but surely this couldn't have been her only option? No, he refused to believe that a course of action with even the slightest possibility of her coming out of it alive was never laid before her. He snorted, knowing her as well as she did him. Of course there had been a choice like that, and of course there had also been stipulations to it, and therefore she had then refused to consider it. How could she consider any decision ending in her death to be an option? Couldn't she have been selfish for once in her life? Couldn't she have said to hell with the galaxy and come back home to him? Couldn't she have refused to die to save everyone, come crawling out the rubble, a shit-eating grin plastered on her face? Her _living _face.

No, because he'd decided to fall in love with the '_Paragon of the Galactic Community'_, savior of the Spirits forsaken organic races that inhabited it. Why, why, why, why …..

"WHY!" He roared, gripping the mostly empty bottle cracked by his talons and throwing it with the type of force only copious amounts of hard liquor and rage could endow. "Damn you Shepard! You little bitch! You made me love something I could never have! Why did you have to be the damn hero all the time? These people didn't deserve your faith Nora! They didn't….deserve you!" He smashed his fist into the memorial next to the name plate of the person he'd loved and lost. He pounded his fist until the memorial was dented and the 'D' in her last name was smeared with his blue blood. He cursed even as the glowing synthetics woven into his DNA started knitting the wound together again. He stared at the web of green on his hand, closing it into a fist at the evidence of what she'd sacrificed herself to create. Peace, hope, and a chance for something indistinguishable but still optimistic somewhere in the near future. He released the tension he held in his body and slumped heavily against the cool metal of the memorial wall. His sub-harmonics calmed from the furious rattle caused by his angry grief, and into the catching thrum that intoned tears that no Turian possessed the ability to shed. He ran tired, shaking fingers along her name and whispered brokenly, "_I _didn't deserve you."

"Maybe not," a voice said gently from behind him, "But she loved you anyways. She loved _us _whether we deserved her or not."

The Turian turned; possessed by the unrelenting grief that consumed him. Grief dangerously heightened by booze. His primal, nearly animalistic nature lashed out at whatever it could to protect him from the pain loss had wracked upon every molecule in his body. Garrus took two long strides forward before he had the man in blue armor pinned against the wall, his talons cutting into the man's uncovered throat as he glared at him mercilessly.

"You of all people should know that, Kaidan," Garrus growled at the unresisting human in his grip. "She loved you! She loved you –no matter how misplaced those feelings proved to be – and the first chance you got, you betrayed that devotion. She died and was brought back into existence feeling alone, lost, and horribly inhuman. And what did _you_ do Kaidan? _You_ threw her loyalty back in her face, and then called her a traitor when she needed you most. Though I suppose I should thank you for being such an unyielding prick, because you drove that honorable, beautiful, brave woman right into my arms. Where were you, Kaidan? Huh? When she found comfort, devotion and love – at a tenfold of what you'd ever given her – in _me_?"

Garrus laughed viciously when he saw the wince his last statement elicited, "Then, when the Reapers finally came like wrath from the sky, you still questioned her at every turn. What for, _Alenko_?" The man's name came out as snide and disparaging as Garrus could possibly make it. "Was it because she was more than you could ever hope to be? She was willing to go beyond the lines that make you so rigid, to protect as many people as she could, taking it upon herself to save a galaxy in turmoil, even after she'd _died_. Were you to proud to see how wrong you were in turning your back on her? Or was it because she fell in love with a disgraced Turian and you couldn't stand the thought of her choosing _me_ over _you_? Is that it, Alenko? Jealousy? You're so pathetic it makes me sick!"

When Kaiden merely gritted his teeth, Garrus pushed him even harder, digging his claws deeper, needing to see this…this… insect suffer after all the torment he'd caused his deceased mate. Garrus's mandibles fluttered with incredulity when a veined popped in Kaidan's eye and the man didn't even whimper. Determined to make the human face his own disgusting visage, the Turian continued, "Even when you came crawling back, you still watched her like she was yours, though she'd never be again. It made me ill to see that look on your face, needy and wanting, but still untrusting. You hid your cowardice behind honor, when all she ever offered you was faith!"

Garrus's voice was harsh as the truth he spoke, but he wouldn't stop, couldn't stop, now, "In the end she was as strong and compassionate as ever, taking shit and demands from all fronts, and never once did she falter to do the right thing. She never once verged from her commitment to the very people who'd scorned her, including you! She believed in you, and for all the bravery that embodied her I'm most disappointed that none of it rubbed off on you! You're a bastard Alenko, and it should be your name up there, not hers!"

By the end of his rant his voice was hoarse with emotion while Alenko merely stood, throat bleeding around his talons, and tears streaming down his face. As if crying could make her any less dead. He snarled, tightening his hands around the other male's throat, wanting to see the asshole struggle for air after all the pain he'd caused Shepard. Pain that had marred her far deeper than she would have ever let be known. Garrus's chest rumbled like death, and from the look in Kaidan's eyes, he knew he was only a breath away from it becoming a promise. Though it was long after she was cold and dead Garrus would avenge any slight done towards his mate, even if that meant tearing out the throat of her ex-lover. For a moment, a single split of a second, a flash in Kaidan's eyes made Garrus wonder if the human wanted it, too.

It must have been a trick of the light though, for in the next instant the human's eyes were flat and unchallenging as he dangled, enduring Garrus's painful grip. Staring at the Turian with tears in his eyes, Kaidan was for once, not exuding a thick aura of distrust, jealousy, and cowardice. Vakarian drew back his arm, with the human's throat still between his talons, before slamming him back into the wall, wanting to see him squirm and plead for his life like Shepard should never have had to plead for his trust. She should never have had to earn his faith, or prove her loyalty, because Shepard deserved no less than what she so warmly gave. He remembered the disdain and distrust the foolish human had seethed with on Horizon, and that only made him slam Kaidan into the wall a second time. Hearing the cracks the force of it made in the Spectre's armor worked a grim smile on the nearly wild alien's face.

Kaidan remained frustratingly placid even as tears and blood leaking from his body. Death was too good for Alenko. Death meant he'd get to see Shepard first. He'd be damned if he'd let this child of a man win over her loving nature even if it happened beyond the veil and into the afterlife. No, death was _too_ good for a man like Kaidan Alenko. He released the Spectre's throat and watched as Kaidan slumped against the elevator doors.

He backed away before he tore the man's throat out, breathing hard as he fought the veil of rage that threatened to overcome his senses. Kaidan coughed sucking in air even as the green synthetics closed the punctures on his neck. Garrus looked at Kaidan like he was, for all intents and purposes, no more than scum at the bottom of his foot.

Garrus considered the human for a moment. For all of his cowardice Alenko was a powerful and dangerous biotic, as well as an excellent soldier. Garrus didn't understand what was keeping the other man back from lashing out at him. Even though they excelled at completely different fields of fighting they were nearly matched in level of ability. It baffled him as much as it angered him.

"Your right," the Spectere said in his rough voice. Shepard had once commented that when they were together that was one her favorite things about Alenko; his voice. She'd spent hours just sitting and listening to him talk. Jealousy had Garrus's fist in on the verge of making quick work of the Spectre's annoyingly handsome face before he remembered the rest of what she had told him that night. She'd said _"Though the funny thing is that I would spend hours with you by the Mako – even when Kaidan and I were together – for even though Kaidan's voice was nice, yours…I don't know, just sounded _right."

He smiled, remembering her cheeky grin when his face betrayed not only the envy he'd felt when he heard her admiring Kaidan's voice, but also the fluster she caused him when she revealed how he'd meant to her even when he'd thought a relationship would never be possible. He remembered him challenging her flexibility soon after that, he thought with fondness. The smile was banished from his mandibles when he recalled that his gorgeous – in a way that he'd never thought toward a human before – courageous mate was gone.

He ignored his boiling wrath even as Alenko continued to speak.

"I didn't deserve Shepard, and by God I even hurt her in my own pride, to which I can never forgive myself. If I had just believed in her she would have still been with me - ," Garrus gave a snort at that. "- _but_, I cannot begrudge how happy she was with you. She loved you Garrus, far more than she'd ever loved me, as loathe I am to admit it. And for that reason, in honor of her memory, I'm asking you now that if she's in heaven watching over us do you think for even a second that she wouldn't be heartbroken by what a mess you've become?"

Garrus looked away, ashamed, because Alenko – the bastard – was right. His plates hung on his body, dull and brittle, on a starved body. His armor was in shambles, and he hadn't been able to calibrate a thing since she'd died. Shepard would cry to see what he was doing to himself. Shepard rarely ever cried – he thought she might deem tears a weakness – and to think such an amazing woman could be brought to tears because of him, filled him with shame.

"I don't believe for even a second that if she were here she wouldn't knock you on your ass for your behavior," Kaidan's comment was bitter but honest, eliciting a reluctant chuckle from Garrus. "Make her proud Garrus. She wouldn't have died for you to then waste away. She sacrificed herself to give you a chance to live. Don't tarnish her memory by calling that woman a bitch in front of the mess hall. She loved you Garrus, beyond a doubt, and were I you, I would be doing everything I could to deserve it. I lost my chance, and now I'm a bitter man who destroyed any opportunity he had to love and be loved by the greatest person to ever grace this universe. Don't make that mistake old friend, or else you'll never stop regretting it."

Garrus's body slumped as all his rage fueled energy rolled off his shoulders with a beaten sigh. The alcohol from the broken liquor bottles pooled at his feet, but the Turian didn't seem to notice. Garrus saw that all the pointless anger directed at his mate was pathetic, and misguided, and a betrayal of a good woman.

"I just…Spirits why did she have to leave me? Why did she do this to me…_to us_? Why did she die, after everything she's done for this worthless hunk of galaxy? If I hadn't been with her when we raced for that beam…Spirits, I would never have able to tell her that I loved her before the Normandy took off. I'd been afraid to say it before then; I mean Turian culture frowns at unabashed confessions like that, and to think she might never have known how I felt if I'd been a _good_ Turian," He shuddered at the thought. "She might have died believing I cared nothing for her. I just, miss her," Garrus sighed, crumbling in front of a man he'd called a coward when in all truth he was no better himself.

"I know," Kaidan said, hesitantly placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. The Turian turned his head away so that this particular human couldn't see the utter pain that lingered in his eyes. "We all do. But earth has a saying that we carry those we've loved and lost inside us. She'll be inside of us all, guiding us as we all rebuild this war torn galaxy into the peaceful realm she fought to bring into reality. She didn't die for nothing, she died to give us the chance to make ourselves, and the worlds she's struggled to bring together worthy of her sacrifice. What do you say, Garrus? Do you want to make the women we love proud?"

Kaidan held his hand out and after a nerve wracking moment Garrus returned the gesture to shake on it, giving a small and uncertain smile. He still hated the human's guts, but the man had sparked a little bit of sanity back into him.

"I suppose your right but - ," Garrus paused as all of what Kaidan had said sank in, and the terribly beautiful idea that sprouted from its impact, caused the turian to tremble slightly.

"What?" Kaidan took his hand back astonished by the change that overcame the being before him. Where once there was a broken Turian hiding like a frightened creature under the mild protection of metallic plates, now there was a man with hope glinting in bright blue eyes, and a body thrumming with new found energy.

"So she lives in all of us, huh," Garrus murmured with a chuckle, stroking along his slightly scarred mandible in contemplation. "By the spirits it just might work!"

"What are you talking about?" Kaidan asked, nervously shuffling his feet. The larger man paced only inches from him in the small hallway and Kaidan had to take a cautious step back to avoid being trampled by an oblivious Garrus. He was rattling off thoughts about processing data contained in the energy of their DNA, and then about contacting Hannah and Adam Shepard – Shepard's parents – for samples. He rambled on, reminding the Spectre of the Salarian, Mordin Solus, he'd met for such a brief but enlightening time on this very ship. Finally, Kaidan, frustrated at being ignored, grabbed Garrus by his cowl and turned him to face him, "What's going on?"

Garrus grunted at being interrupted but paused to glance at the human, grinning, "She was brought back once, right? She can be brought back again."

"The first time they had Shepard's body to work off of," Kaidan argued shocked by the ideas running through the other man's head, though the undeniably farfetched thought didn't stop a small amount of hope to ignite within his eyes. "We have nothing. Her body was never found, and I honestly don't think we ever will find her."

Garrus scoffed, "If Vega can grow an arm back within eighteen days than I can give my mate her body back with DNA samples from her parents and those scattered around her cabin. With all this new technology and the Reapers working on our side I'd be damned by the grace of the Spirits if I can't do the impossible _now _when she did so once before without either one of those things. She can make it through _this _death too, I know it."

There was no hint of liquor clouding his judgment – just the right amount of crazy, as Shepard was fond of saying. A Turian on a mission to bring back his dead mate had just that amount of crazy or a whole lot more stupid. Either way, there was no stopping him now. That determination didn't make Kaidan pause in his effort to make Garrus see reason. If he failed in this endeavor, it would crush the Turian beyond recognition, and maybe Kaidan, too. Hope, built up that way, will always fall the hardest on the one most determined to keep it up.

"So? Even if we _can_ get her body back, she won't be _Shepard_," Kaidan said, voice hoarse with emotion. "Her mind, her soul, is gone."

"No. I refuse to believe that," Garrus snapped his head over to stare Alenko down. "You said yourself that she lives within us. I think whatever happened up on that crucible was Shepard's doing. Knowing that woman as I do, she never does things half way. She'd throw herself on a grenade for us, what makes you think this is any different?"

Kaidan threw up his arms exasperated, even as hope at bringing her back sprouted in his chest, growing with every sentence Garrus said like a plant reaching from the forest floor to the canopy hoping the light of the sun might one day touch it. "Even if _this_," he gestured at the green cybernetics webbing across their prospective bodies, "is _her_, how do you propose we rebuild her? And on that note, would she really thank us if we brought her back to life…_again_?"

Garrus turned on Kaidan with a ferocity that shocked him down to his polished boots, "Don't tell me what she would and would not want! I knew Shepard better than anyone. She wanted to live! I'm going to give back to her what she died giving to every last one of us: Life. We owe it to her to try! No, scratch that, we owe it to her to _succeed_. She wanted this galaxy to have peace? If Shepard has taught me anything then it's that this galaxy – my galaxy – has only been peaceful when she was in it. I'm bringing her back Kaidan, for all of us. I can think of no better person than she to put our worlds together."

Garrus turned, strode with a purpose that hadn't filled his limbs in the nearly three weeks since Shepard's death, into the elevator, pressing the button to the CIC to get to the comm. room and relay his plans to the parties he thought could assist the most. Behind him the doors wouldn't close, and he turned only to discover a Spectre standing with his hands pressed against the slots, keeping the doors open. His head was down and he was shaking it as if he was gathering an argument. Then Alenko looked up into Garrus's eyes and whispered, "What if you fail?"

Garrus eyes hardened with resolve that Alenko hadn't thought the Turian possessed, a determination that transcended death, and if Garrus had anything to say about it, it would. Kaidan leaned forward lowering his brows and asking again, more forcefully this time, when the man before him didn't reply, "What if you fail, Garrus?"

Garrus placed a foot on the human's chest and none-to-gently pushed him back into the hall. When Kaidan gained his footing again, he met the gaze of an unfaltering Turian named Garrus Vakarian who then stated like it was already fact, "I won't."

With that, the elevator door closed, and Kaidan Alenko stood dumbfounded. If anyone could bring her back, Garrus could. Armed only with the determination of his will that is no doubt inspired from Shepard herself. Kaidan may never have been worthy of someone like Shepard, but after seeing this specific Turian fight for his mate, he thought wryly and with no small amount of bitterness, that there was at least one man who came pretty damn close.


	3. Chapter 3

_(Disclaimer: I do not own Bioware or any of its creations, this is not for profit.)_

**Chapter 3 **

* * *

**_(Four days after Awakening)_**

"Argh!" Commander Nora Shepard groaned. Sweat beaded her brow and the ache beginning to tighten her muscles warned her that if she didn't stop her incessant work out soon muscle cramps would be practically guaranteed. She forced herself to relax, stepping back from the punching dummy, and focusing on the deep burn screaming under her skin. It was better than focusing on the screaming in her head.

She took a careful breath, unwrapped the bloody cloth surrounding her knuckles, and began rubbing at the broken flesh that was already starting to close before her eyes. She sighed, numb to the miracle of her own rapid healing, when her soul was filled with turmoil.

_If I even still have a soul_, Shepard thought bitterly.

She shook her head fiercely and smashed her fist into the dummy, luxuriating in the pain that cleared the emotions from her mind, however briefly. In the few days since her awakening – she refused to call it 'rebirth' – her thoughts had become more collective as memories fell back into place. Though the clarity of focus didn't help her cope with the conundrum that had become her life.

She'd been awake for four days and the capacity of potential abnormalities that occurred within or around her were a big fat question mark._ She_ was a big fat question mark. One that kept getting bigger. The uncertainty kept building, and the longer she went without answers, the more tenuous her hold on sanity would become. She felt like Humpty Dumpty, broken after her fall, and all the King's horses and all the kings men were doing a damned poor job of putting her back together again.

Evelyn Birch, the British doctor who had been overseeing her aforementioned 'reconstruction, had also continued to see over her relative integration back into the land of the living. She'd explained to Shepard exactly what had had to happen to bring her back a second time.

She recalled the disorientating conversation that occurred only hours before…

_"With the astounding amount of knowledge and technology made available to us by the Reapers, and the Synthesis of organics and synthetics, the recreation of your body was a relatively easy task. The process of giving you back your mind, and essentially your very essence in a body that would appear otherwise 'uninhabited' was understandably far more difficult. Finding that essence in the very energy coating the DNA cohesion was like finding a needle in a haystack. Your sentient mind had, apparently, been broken down into a living code that acted in part with a – let's call it virus – used to bind synthetic and organic matter in all sentient minds, while also freeing the Reapers and their instruments from the Catalyst's influence and imbibing them with your moral epitaph. It was difficult to identify what part of the code contained_ **you**_ and what contained the rest of the virus. After a team of specialized technicians, code readers, and scientists interpreted what consisted of your mind and what was the message underlying it, they began the interminable effort to assimilate that with your physical form. _

_"Separating you from the code was nigh impossible, and even more dire was the issue that the code begins to fade from the process within months of the 'virus' taking hold. Its presence becomes a dormant virus in the body until that being communes with another sentient being or the material connected to such a being who was, as of yet, unaffected by synthesis; such as a fetus. A brilliant tactician by the name of Tali'Zora discovered that because your body wasn't sentient yet, your data couldn't be transferred into your new body. They created a sort of psycho-alembic chip that allowed the mind to activate but remain dormant, indubitably opening a passage for the code to integrate both into the organic flesh and the synthetic enhancements. Unfortunately even though the code was inside you, the psyche wouldn't accept your presence inside it, due to a by-process data stream that prevented those you'd 'infected' through Synthesis from being overwhelmed and overcome by your code. Your altruistic actions were to free the galaxy from an indomitable presence, not encourage a new one, hence the safety measure of that stream._

_"To progress from there that measure would have to be removed, while preserving the freewill that special process granted in any other sentient being it came in contact with. To save you, we would not undo what you had fought so hard to create. It was a dilemma that at times seemed discouraging, but we could not desist without potential disaster. Isolating our intended code from the rest without damaging the entire stream and then reintroducing it intact was a difficult undertaking. We were also working against the clock because you were starting to fade and as you can imagine morale was low in the presence of such opposition."_

_Shepard really didn't appreciate being called a virus, but beggars can't be choosers, and she supposed the analogy was accurate enough. The doctor didn't seem to notice her disquiet – so involved her explanation that she seemed unaware of the fact that she was waving around the injection she'd been on the verge of giving her charge and then forgotten about after a query from Shepard. (Nora made a mental note not to ask the doctor questions when she was currently holding pointy objects.) She eyed the preposterously long needle warily, understandably apprehensive of the contents, but even more so of the thought of that thing spearing into her newly acquired flesh. She continued to listen to the oblivious doctor even as she backed away from the increasingly approaching needle._

_"The team came up with the idea to trick the virus, essentially using its own nature against it to trap it in your mind and download the code into your cognitive processes. This also kept the code from fading until you were fully aware. The action of doing this allowed the team to work a mutation into the data and make it organic in nature. I suppose I could describe it as though your mind were like a system downloaded into a computer, but aware with a sentience that was evolved from both the organic brain and a synthetic core processes. You are in fact a new breed, beyond what was made of us through this synthesis. You didn't just imprint in the comatose body, you became that mind, shaping the materials into something that was beyond a code, and beyond a thought; it was you, fully and completely. I don't know what happened after that, in fact no one does, but the complete mutation of the base code that permitted you to become yourself again quickly became evident to our team. _

_"Your personality – your spirit if you will – is most definitely still there, but you adapted in a way that is not quantifiable. For example, even though you are still human, your mind and body are maintaining a resting state that goes off the charts of any know organic or synthetic. Your aware mind is incredible; functioning in ways that have yet to unfold themselves. For that reason I am going to maintain observation on you and make sure the abnormalities in your mind or body aren't corrupted or cause any potential harm…"_

The woman had kept talking, delving into a field that Shepard, even with her advancements, could not comprehend. Shepard felt like herself, but she was aware too easily of just how different she was. Her mind processed in a way that bordered on effortless. Her body, after the code became dormant, would heal at a rate twice that of her pre-synthesis form. Her senses were heightened to a nearly intolerable degree were she not so capable of adaptation. Her organic mind was jump started by the code that defined her, but it didn't help her cope with the things that no other experienced. Like the fact that she sometimes picked up on thoughts not spoken aloud. Or, that she'd become somewhat of an empath, able to detect emotions. It wasn't constant, but at random increments she'd pick up on what others in the room were feeling. Her biotics had altered slightly, glowing brilliant green, as her body hummed with dormant energy that didn't need eezo in her blood to create a powerful mass-effect field.

She'd been told that the code and the affects that Synthesis had caused was called, "Sporrosis". It seemed an apt name. She wondered what they'd called her one day; "Subject 1"? A wry smile twisted her lips as she punched once more.

She had escaped to the physical therapy section of the hospital, hoping to flee the multitude of tests that the team of doctors – including the doctor herself, Tali'Zorah and a couple of other familiar faces –insisted performing upon her. She'd started to feel like her mutated body was a jack-in-the-box and her dwindling patience was the crank. She was tired of being a science experiment, and tired of putting on the brave face in the presence of so many unknowns. She was glad she was alive, yah, but the worries in her mind could not be suppressed, and the anxiety they caused was the reason she was testing her body to its limits against a defenseless dummy. Nora was alive, again, but what had she come back as?

Her body was human, but what about her mind? She was no scientist but she had figured out pretty quickly that she was a walking abnormality; a glowing green freak fest. They said that the brilliant glow of her own viral reaction – the green lines they called 'Sporrosis Webbing' – would fade to a dull shimmer just like those around her in a matter of months as her code became dormant in her body. Would she fade with it? Or if she stayed present in her head, would the glow remain? She didn't know. And she hated not knowing things.

She also hated being afraid, which she was finding herself subject to more and more often. She knew how to deal with fear. She loaded it into her muscles like a heat sink loaded in a gun, and let loose. She punched until her body hummed angrily at her for the merciless exertions she forced upon it. She cursed until her throat was raw and she imagined an observer's eyes becoming wide with shock at her profanity. She wheedled down her mind until she could wrap her head around the concept that so disturbed her, and then she could accept it and use her knew knowledge to become stronger.

She refused to inflict her frustrations on the undeserving; her infuriating at times moral code prohibited it. Yet the harder it became to accept the fact that she wasn't human, and she wasn't a VI or even an AI, then the harder it became to deny the disturbing truth of what eluded her. What was she? A zombie? A mutant? She threw a hard right hook with a scream, missed, and stumbled, causing her to fall to her knees. She stayed on her knees, breathing hard, unwilling, mayhap even incapable of moving in that moment. Had she been in battle, she'd have been an easy target, and yet she couldn't bring herself to care. She almost wished someone would take a shot at her. Death meant silence, and with numb clarity, she found that the thought held a disturbing allure.

She wanted to cry, but she refused to pity her own gift. She denied any instinct she had to lash out when the conflict was solely within. She wanted to accept what she'd become and live the life that she'd been given. She wanted to be free of her obligatory nature. She just wanted to have faith that her soul had followed her mind. She wanted reassurance that she was Shepard, and not an advanced vessel for the woman's memories. Was her emotions her own, or an echo of a far more human creature?

She thought of Garrus and she wished she could understand how even after everything that she'd become, he could still love her. Hell, he'd been the one to instigate the project itself, and she wasn't too proud to admit that she'd been afraid at first that he would distrust her out of hand like Kaidan once had. She'd felt guilty for the lack of faith she'd shown when he'd never once lapsed in his faith in her. Once burned and all that. She promised to never question his conviction again so long as she lived.

Maybe he just knew – she wouldn't put it past him – that she'd had need of him in that moment, but suddenly she felt his soothing presence behind her and she turned readily into his arms the instant he was on his knees beside her. He pulled her against his chest and she nuzzled her head into the crook of his neck, knowing he was a fundamental haven among such immaterial misgivings. He didn't question the tears that finally poured from her eyes, which he obviously felt, since his sub-harmonics started to trill a comforting note. Her mate had never questioned her, never faltered to believe in her at every turn, and even now he held her gently in her weakest moment because she needed him and so, of course, he was there.

She cried, for the turmoil and fear that raged inside her. Tears pushed past all her defenses, crumbling her conviction to stand strong, and giving her the release. She let go of the conviction to remain strong that had, for so long, been her cage, and for the first time in who knows how long, she mourned. Nora Shepard mourned for her humanity. She mourned for the little girl who'd followed so eagerly in her parent's footsteps only to die twice over. She mourned for the woman she used to be, who'd never changed even as her body did. She mourned for love lost, friends taken, and dreams cast into rubble. She mourned as she'd never before for all the things stolen form her, and all the fear and guilt she'd bottled up inside wondering who else might one day join their numbers. She mourned herself, for her death, and abrupt rebirth, while the world celebrated the return of their Savior, and not _her_. They didn't understand how much this life had cost her. They failed to comprehend that their hero could be touched baser things; like fear and cowardice, anger and hate.

She'd been so strong for people who never even knew her. Died, traumatically, just to give those same people peace. It was ironic that only in the peace that she'd finally created could she be the one thing still in chaos. No, she was cursed with her survival, because the galaxy still needed her, and there was no room for self remorse. All those people needed her to save the day, even when there was nothing for her to save them from.

Of those people, only he knew, sometimes she needed saving too.

"Garrus," She whispered brokenly, curling her body around him, needing to absorb his strength, his love. He merely pulled her closer, as if he needed some consolation too. "You brought me back." She stated, astounded by his conviction.

"Of course," he rumbled against her. "You promised you'd come back. I couldn't let you be a liar now could I?"

She tried to chuckle, but it just came out a sob. He was comfort in a way that defied all realities. He was sharp and hard, an immovable wall of pure turian muscle. She was soft and fleshy, a vulnerable array of everything human. He effortlessly transcended that tangible alien nature into an intangible but no less real sensation of it being right. He was the reason she'd succeeded in the war against the Reapers. He was there, like dawn on her Horizon, waking her from the darkness of her fate and illuminating possibilities that had, for so long, been obscured by the starless abyss of war. He made her hope, made her dream. He'd been her perseverance, when she'd feared he would be the reason that she faltered. He was her greatest weakness, because without him she could have never found the strength to keep going.

_He chased away the darkness_, she thought.

She drank in the scent of him; like the scent of copper pennies and gun oil was the finest potpourri. She loved this man; she'd died for this man. She'd live all that much more desperately so long as he was hers.

New tears fell from her eyes, but they were far less harsh, and far sweeter than those that came before. She, for the first time in her life was crying out of joy. Crying out of hope for the home she found in the arms of her 'bad' turian. She leaned back to look into his face, realizing she'd never seen one more beautiful to her. He was beautiful because he was _Garrus_. The love that shined in his eyes surpassed any standard of beauty, transcending any preconception of what she thought was handsome. She, for the first time, felt worthy of what she saw in his eyes, because he saw _her._ Not Commander Shepard, hero of the galaxy, but the woman whom was broken and worn down by fear and yet managing to stand brave despite it. For him, instead of facing death unafraid, she'd face life very much frightened and a little unsure. She could survive anything in her path so long as she knew that he'd be there beside her, with nothing more than promises and hope built like a monument upon it.

_She_'d needed him, so he was there, end of story.

She looked up at her bondmate and smiled her first smile in what felt like an eternity. He grinned back, whipping her tears away gently – tenderly – with his talons.

"I guess I should take that smile to mean you appreciate my keeping you an honest woman?" He chuckled.

"I guess you could," She whispered warmly. They sat in silence for a moment, simply enjoying each other's presence.

"I hope that even after all this you can still love this sad example of a turian?" He asked lightly after a moment, though she could detect the worry that underlay his tone. She leaned forward to press her forehead against his, staring into his eyes with the type of unfaltering conviction that had withstood her death and all the fears that lingered after.

"Always," She whispered fervently. In that moment, while they sat savoring the truth of those words, she realized she no longer wondered if her soul was gone or not, because she knew now that he'd had it all along. She sat there in sweat, tears and blood, being embraced by her alien mate, realizing that where the pain had only cleared her mind, his love had given her peace.

When they came together that night, it was because they sought the comfort. There was passion, but it was passion of a subtler kind. The goal was not climax, but knowledge. In their room there was no chaos, only two people, celebrating because they knew they held something precious…

Life.


	4. Chapter 4

_(Disclaimer: I do not own Bioware or any of its creations. This is not for gain.)_

**_Chapter 4 – A New World_**

* * *

**_(Two weeks after Awakening. Nine months and one week since Synthesis.)_**

She could feel the muscle beneath her left eye twitching and had to resist the urge to reach up and still the movement. This was hell, she thought, utterly her own personal hell.

"This is Khalisah Al-Jilani with Galactic News."

She'd beaten the Reapers – heck she'd "taught them how to love" just like Joker had sarcastically suggested – but this woman refused to stop tormenting her no matter how many times she died. It didn't make a lick of sense.

"I'm here with Commander Shepard, Savior of the Galaxy, who has just returned from her second 'miraculous' recovery. Tell me Commander, do you have any advice to those who would like to cheat death, or any sympathy toward the families who's loved ones obviously weren't important enough to be given a second chance at life, let alone a third?"

If she were a fresh kill, Shepard bet Al-Jilani would be the vulture circling overhead.

All the anger that had been broiling to well done beneath her coolly professional facade faded away like it had never existed. That was what hurt the most. She'd been brought back, impossibly, from the afterlife not once but _twice_ and yet there were so many people – good and incredible people – who had died for the same cause she had. Ashley, Mordin, Thane, were all people that no one had even thought about bringing back and yet they had been just as instrumental in saving the galaxy, perhaps even more so, than she was. Instead, she had faced something as unconquerable and final as death and been spit back up like her moral fiber was an unpalatable substance.

Nora Shepard held the woman's gaze for a long moment, letting her disappointment shine through her eyes, before looking straight into the camera hovering next to her, "Do you honestly believe that I wouldn't trade places with any one of them had I the chance? Do you honestly think that I put myself above the billions of people dead? Let me tell you this, Jilani; I died. Died, twice, for you; all of you. The people of this galaxy deserved life, and I fought until my last seconds to ensure that they got what they deserved. I was brought back from my final rest to save the galaxy from impossible odds. I sacrificed my life to save people, and it was just chance that due to the nature of my death I was able to be brought back both times. I have never stopped, never faltered in my dedication towards the life that inhabits this galaxy, and I would do it all over again even if the possibility of me coming back was zilch. You insult the lives of every single person who perished in the war with the Reapers by insinuating that my survival is nothing more than an elaborate gesture of pettiness. I watched friends, colleagues, and even strangers die before my eyes and every one of their faces has been burned into my memory. As a reminder. A reminder of my dedication to spare them the horror's in this galaxy, and how, despite my efforts, I've failed so many of them.

"I see that all you've dedicated yourself to is your ratings," She stated, coldly pinning the other woman with the stare that Garrus called her 'I eat Krogan for breakfast' stare. "Tell me this, Al-Jilani. When the Citadel was disintegrating before your eyes, and you were fighting for your life, was there a single moment where you put any other person's survival before your own?"

Khalisah turned her face away so the Commander couldn't see just how true her damning words were. She'd literally pushed people out of the way to survive, and hadn't even given a thought to them when she was safely in a shuttle, half a planet away from the destruction.

"I didn't think so," Shepard said, knowing what was on the other woman's face without having to see it. "Good-bye Khalisah Al-Jilani," She said turning and striding off while throwing over her shoulder. "Enjoy your life. Consider it a gift from me to you."

Commander Shepard walked away from the cursing woman, feeling hollow inside at the small victory she'd just won. What she'd said had been true. About if she had to go back and do it again, that she would have still done it over and over again. What she hadn't told the whole truth about was that she would never wish 'reconstruction' on anyone. When that camera light had turn toward her that final time, she'd been caught by its blinding light, and for a moment she had been up on the Catalyst throwing herself into the beam again; feeling herself die for a moment suspended in time, before snapping back into awareness. She hadn't given away even a moment of her involuntary reaction, but she'd none the less experienced it. Her fists clenched to hide the betraying tremble. It had not been an easy death, and despite the honesty of her words, the traumatic knowledge of pain was an ever present echo in her bones even now.

She wouldn't wish this on anyone, because survival meant that others didn't, and you hadn't really come out all there yourself. Death takes something away from you, which you wouldn't even notice was there until it's gone. You accustom yourself to its presence like a song humming in the background that, when it stops, it takes a few moments for you to understand what's missing, and by then you're drowning in the silence of its absence.

You lose your ignorance. Ignorance isn't something you can just pick back up again. When it's lost, there is no turning back.

By all that's good in this world you'd never think _knowledge_ could hurt so much. Knowing is different than believing, because faith leaves room for doubt. Shepard stalked through an airlock feeling her emotions pull hard and heavy at her control, making her sway and press her hands against either side of the opposite door to keep from collapsing. Breathing the dry air through her lips, she panted desperate lung-fulls of air. Her mind was jumping through hoops to grow accustomed to a thought – no a _knowledge_ – that was trapping her in a room with all her worst fears. It was a room with – as Legion had once stated – '_no structural weaknesses'_ and little hope for escape.

Her nose started bleeding when the airlock hissed open; pushing billows of oxygen into her face as she brought herself quickly back together. She whipped the blood away with her sleeve even as the Sporrosis put a stop to the flow. She walked up the walkway quickly, locking her trepidations far away in her mind, like that quiet place was a box and every step she took was another chain and padlock keeping it closed. She didn't think it'd do any good though. Insidious things had patience and she was beginning to realize that she had none at all. She'd have to face it sooner or later, but for now, she'd mend the bonds of her sanity with a shit load of glue, prayer, and a carefully laid distraction.

By sweet mercy here was a perfect one, she thought as a voice said, "If there is an award for having the most _dumb luck _of any person in the galaxy I think you'd win hands down."

Commander Shepard looked at Jeff Monreau with a raised eyebrow, "Really? I thought I'd thought have better chances with the most devastatingly good looking and utterly charming person in the galaxy award."

Joker scoffed with his full body, which was an impressive display for a man who once had bones like peanut brittle, "No chance at all really. I'd win that one in a landslide."

She threw back her head and laughed because she might as well have set him up perfectly for that. Shepard shook her head still chuckling softly after a moment, "Oh, man, Joker did I miss your charming personality. Your effortless insubordination has always been the highlight of my day."

"Hey, hey don't make it seem like it's not a difficult thing to do," He pushed off from the wall he'd been leaning on to walk – actually walk, instead of limp, she was glad to see – towards her. "I devote a good amount of my down time to working out new ways to piss you off."

"Good thing I'm cool as a cucumber then," She smiled fondly before shaking the hand he held out to her – which by force of habit she did as gently as possible – and walking beside him when he gestured her forward. "Or else you'd be a mass broken bones by now."

"Ya, good thing you're the nicest freaking Commander in the galaxy," He snorted, nudging her side to gesture that they needed to turn left. "My talents are wasted on you," Joker sighed. "Even EDI has the decency to scowl when I manage to irritate her. Any time I complain that my sarcasm is lost on you she just says that your 'stoicism is impermeable'."

"Sounds like EDI," She chuckled, as they stopped at another door, "Yourself preservation instincts truly are deplorable. It's a miracle that you've even lived this long with your gregarious personality still intact, let alone your person."

"Bah," he said as the door opened finally. "You and EDI with your big words. Neither one of you understand just how sopista-…shophitsi-… deep I really am."

"That's the point though isn't it? We both know that if you were a body of water, you'd be a very shallow one," Shepard said wryly, looking around the large docking bay they strode into with an awareness of the space that only someone with military training could have.

"Ouch, Commander," he said rubbing his heart sarcastically. "That really hurt. Your just being mean because you can't figure out this big present Garrus said he had for you."

She stopped and turned to look at him when he paused, "Oh? And how do you know about that?"

"I have my ways," he said with a smile.

"Since you're here, I'm guessing that my gift is probably on the Normandy," She stated.

"What? You didn't think I was the gift?" He spread his arms out and gestured at himself with a jerk of his head as if to say "_How could you not?"_

She crossed her arms, cocked a hip, and eyed him while saying, "He would never be so cruel."

"Touché," he smirked, glibly walking forward until he stood before the large panel of windows. "However, you're still wrong. The gift isn't _on_ the Normandy…," he said to her as she came to stand beside him. He gestured out at what lay beyond the windows, "It _is_ the Normandy."

A frown wrinkled her brow before she looked where he gestured. When she saw it, her jaw dropped and a little sound of shock whooshed past her gullet. Out on the tarmac there was a ship being pulled towards the airlock. A_ really_ _big_ ship.

"I present to you," he swept out with a gracious manor that just seemed completely foreign on him, "the Normandy SR-3."

She made a needy sound, pressing up against the glass like a child would press against the display of the largest, and most delicious piece of candy ever invented, knowing that if they just _touched _it their small life would finally be perfect. All her troubles melted away as she looked at the ship that had become her home. This, here, was like that, so nearly perfect that she could practically touch it. The only thing that would make it more perfect was…

"Do you like it," A flanging voice said behind her, as if summoned by her thoughts of him alone. She turned to look at her mate, a brilliant smile on her face, "Not even a little." She said.

She knew a bigger lie had never been told, and by the grin he gave her, she'd bet that he knew it just as much as she did.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter- 5**

"So an entire ship, huh," She smirked after a moment. "If you wanted to make up for abandoning me to the ministrations of Dr. Birch all you had to do was bring a…I don't know, something romantic like a sniper mod or something."

He chuckled, "Only you would think a sniper mod was romantic."

They had parted ways after her 'episode' in the hospital gym, and even though he had been anxious about leaving her, it was obvious that he had something else other than her damaged brain that needed his attention. She wasn't going to bemoan the fact he'd probably had more to do than hold her hand when she'd been, um, out of commission, for eight months. Watching the Normandy SR-3 roll across the tarmac Shepard had the impression that this had most definitely been his doing. The ship was at least triple the size of the first Normandy, and now had larger wings on either side of it's body. By her estimate, it was nearly as large as a Turian frigate. The ship was beautiful, even without her biased eye, and she didn't think it was just the fact that it said Normandy across its port side. The paint job threw her for a minute though.

"White, Red and Gold?" She said confused, turning to Garrus with a furrow in her brow. "No Alliance colors?"

"Er, yah, here's the thing," he muttered scratching a talon unconsciously across his faded scar, "We are no longer with the Alliance."

"No? Are we going rogue?" She asked amused. She didn't understand what issue he was skirting around, but it was obviously one he thought she'd be upset about.

"Well, no, not exactly." He looked out the window as the airlock started to extend towards the stationary ship. The moon's reflective pigments were throwing a silver sheen across the metallic shell of the large ship, making her ship look like a diamond in the barren crater.

"Then what's going on Garrus? Why do we have a new ship? It's not like we're fighting the Reapers anymore, we don't need a better ship." She said, beginning to get nervous at his anxiety, crossing her arms and staring her mate down.

"Okay," he said, bracing himself as if for a physical blow. "So, the citadel had been destroyed, and even though a lot of civilians managed to get away, the Council and the presidium were completely destroyed."

"Figures," she snorted at this news. She'd saved the Council only to have it destroyed before they could get the world back in working order. She felt sorrow at the fact that all the people that had been on the Presidium had been killed, but she felt little sympathy toward the Council.

"Everyone was kind of in a scatter as you can guess, what without the relays, their government decimated, and people still wary about the Reapers." He paused, collecting his thoughts behind that impenetrable Turian mask.

"Garrus, where are you going with this?" she forced herself to relax her tense frame to reach out and turn the man physically toward her. He looked down at her with those crystalline blue eyes and she held his arm reassuringly, with only the thin material of his civvies between her and his warm plates.

"The Normandy became the center of command with Hackett at the helm, trying to organize people, but he just wasn't you; he couldn't keep people in line and everyone was still in a kind of chaos, so he had to _do_ something. When I initiated the project to get you, er, rebuilt, it sprouted an idea in that old man's head. He asked me to coordinate with him to get another project under way. The project was called 'Galactic New Embassy' and at it's center was the Normandy, and…you." He said lamely, watching for her reaction. He didn't have to wait long.

Shepard's jaw dropped and she glanced between him and the docked Normandy, and then back at him. She had a sinking feeling she knew where this was going.

"And," he said hurriedly before she could comment, "I know you would be apprehensive at the idea, but Hackett insisted it was a good one, so a base was created on your moon to tear apart the current Normandy, and start work on the new Normandy that would, in essence, be a new mobile Council. However; as Udina so kindly demonstrated, the old system of politics didn't work, so a group of species met to discuss what this new 'Embassy' should consist of. We settled for the idea of a representative from every species becoming an ambassador for their people so that we could go from planet to planet to help aid in the reconstruction of home worlds and colonies. They would be middle men in effect between the redevelopment of each species government and those of others so that resources or whatever it is they need could be made available to them. The purpose was also to promote a sort of order in all this chaos so everyone could have a voice in the 'New Galactic Community'. Commanding the ship, the ground teams, and the negotiations would be you; the only person anyone would trust enough at the helm."

He rushed all that out so quickly that she was left fumbling for a reaction to this bit of life changing news. He watched her as she watched the ship bound to hold the "New Galactic Embassy" and in essence her position in its future while simultaneously processing all that he'd just said. She turned back to him – and not with anything close to the anger he'd feared – with a contemplative and slightly amused light in her eyes.

"I like it," she said finally into the tense silence that had spread between them. "I'd purposed something similar, but the idea of it being a mobile embassy is even better."

"So…," he said, disbelieving and hopeful that he'd actually done something right. "You think it's a good idea? You aren't angry about being wrangled into politics first thing? I mean it's a big responsibility, and you've never liked dealing with - ," He was forced to stop when she pressed his mandibles together to stop them from moving, and in turn, stop his nervous rambling, which he always seemed to wind up doing whenever she was around. He just wanted to make her proud, and seeing the smile on her face when she looked into his eyes, he felt he might be doing well at that.

"It's perfect Garrus, I couldn't have done better myself," she stroked his markings reassuringly before pulling him down to press her forehead affectionately against his. She put a hand behind her back to flip off her pilot when she heard a gagging sound behind her. She pulled back and said earnestly, "You did well."

He gave her his charming Turian grin and said, "In that case would you like to board your new home before we get swamped by politicians?"

"Um, yes," she said, "Give me the grand tour. I'm sure I'll love it."

"Ugh, gross," She heard Joker say as he started forward, and she smacked him on the back of the head as he passed by, without turning away from her mate. "Ouch, dang Commander, just cause I'm not breakable anymore doesn't mean I can't bruise."

Shepard rolled her eyes, snickering as he bent to fetch his hat off the ground, shooting her a glare because she'd been the one to dislodge it. "Get going Joker, I want the ship ready to lift off before our illustrious new passengers climb aboard."

"What, you planning to fly away and start a life as a space pirate and leave your new life as a political babysitter stewing in the docking bay?" He asked shuffling off.

"You know it!" She yelled after him. "So I'll need that ship up and running stat!"

She thought she heard "Ya, ya" but couldn't be sure. She shook her head with a smile before looking back at Garrus, only to see him wringing his hands. "What, you have more good news I suppose? Or do you really think I'd blast away toward the sunset and leave all your hard work behind?"

He laughed at that, knowing she'd do nothing of the sort though he felt himself secretly wishing she would. Especially in light of what he had to tell her.

"Come on nervous Nelly, spit it out." She huffed placing a hand on her hip. "You hiding a secret girlfriend from me or something?"

He ignored the nervous Nelly statement which he didn't understand and harrumphed at the thought of him wanting anyone other than her. He opened his mouth to tell her – though without the spit, which he thought she wouldn't appreciate even if she stated otherwise, "Well, when we were searching for ambassadors, we settled on several without needing to contemplate it. Several of _those_ faces will be undoubtedly familiar."

"Oh? Like who," she asked politely not wanting to push him.

"Well, for one, the Turian ambassador," he scratched his fringe. "I ended up asking my father to take the position, which he accepted."

"That's good?" she tried to state positively, but at his face it came out more as a question.

"Well, yah, that will be…interesting," he scoffed a little wryly. "But that's not the news I think you should know." She waited patiently, so he said at her indomitable posture. "The Human ambassador was mulled over a bit more and we finally settled with a man with a strong military record and a persuasive political career."

"Hackett," She said, nodding at the obvious choice.

"Um, no, he refused the position. The man who accepted the position was Colonel - ,"

"Adam Shepard," She said feeling her breath break in surprise. Her eyes widened perceptibly with shock.

His brow plate raised in bemusement – a gesture he'd learned from Shepard – and said, "How did you know?"

"And I'm guessing my Mother, Brother, and Uncle also joined up," She stated without answering his question.

Baffled he looked at her before he realized that she wasn't looking at him but at something over his right shoulder. He turned to see a group of humans clustering around the administrative booth on the far side of the room. They hadn't noticed them yet but as Garrus eyed the newcomers the youngest in the group, a nearing middle-aged man with caramel skin and black hair, glanced over. He smiled and poked one of the older men next to him in the side. When the older man on his right turned to look in their direction, Garrus had no doubt the man was Shepard's Father.

"I should have known," she said wryly. At his confused glance she smiled over at him, "There's something important you need to know about the clan of Shepard, Garrus. Where one goes, others are bound to follow."

"Then why were you alone on the Normandy," He said a little angry, for a reason that he couldn't particularly identify.

She shrugged, "The Alliance always kept us separated, and when I came back to life, I felt it would be stupid to ask them to join on to a suicide mission, let alone when Cerberus was still in the mix. They came to visit when I was imprisoned on Earth, and I got them to help mobilize some last minute defenses before the attacks. My Uncle Alaric died when moon base was hit, coordinating forces as a favor to me. I know it was my fault he was there, but I also know a lot more people would have died if he hadn't been there. After I got aboard the Normandy again, we didn't have the chance to say goodbye before I was sent off to Mars, and then I was to busy with all those assignments Hackett had me doing. I wished I'd demanded to talk to them before I…died. The Reapers have kept us separated for a long time, but now I guess with them on our side there is no reason for my family not to chase me down."

She said it all with some lasting bitterness, and he put a hand on her shoulder in comfort as they watched her family approach. It was a gesture not missed by the eldest male of the Shepard clan, if the narrowing of his eyes was any indication. Garrus quickly made it into a friendly pat, knowing that Shepard probably hadn't had the time to inform her family of their, um, relationship. At first glance Adam was a grizzled fifty something Irish man, with the dark hair, pale skin, and bright green eyes that he had passed onto his daughter. Beyond the gruff exterior, though, was an extensive intelligence and, as the man walked right up to Nora and took her into a bone breaking hug, a love for his family that went without question. As Father and daughter greeted each other after such a long, heartbreaking, time apart Garrus had the chance to quickly examine the rest of clan Shepard.

In contrast to her husband, Hannah Shepard was a smaller woman with the honeyed skin and dark eyes of what he recalled being prominent of those with Indian descent. She was a handsome woman, even in her late fifties, from what he knew of human culture. She looked warmly at her husband and daughter with just as much love as her husband had shown when embracing his child. She looked at him, and he got the impression of a strong military commander quickly assessing him, and then dismissing him with an air of practicality that reminded him of Nora. He thought, for a moment, recalling what Shepard had once said about her mother. She'd said her that though her father had inspired her military career and compassionate nature, it was her mother whom had taught her daughter how to have care and respect for things that were different than she. He didn't know much about human history, but he knew that people with darker skin pigments were often treated as lesser beings in the early years of civilization for an unfounded reason. He knew that lesson had helped make Shepard who she was, and he found himself grateful towards the distinguished woman for the young girl who had become the mate standing beside him today.

The youngest of the group, he guessed to be Evan Shepard, was around thirty-six, which he estimated made him two years older than Shepard. Where physically Nora resembled her father, her older brother Evan obviously took after their mother. He had the same golden skin that his mother did, as well as her dark eyes and black hair. Nora had once described her older sibling as caddish, boastful, and sarcastic, but that he was also one of the most honorable men she had ever met as well as a killer sniper. He could tell she loved her family, but by the wistful tone of her voice as she related their childhood shenanigans, he knew this man had a special place in her heart. His attitude shinned in the cocky and carefree grin he cast toward his sister as she ribbed at him and the Turian suddenly understood that this was where Nora had learned her self-assured joking manor. Oh, great, he knew a trouble maker when he saw one.

That thought transcended to the second oldest man, who he knew to be Shepard's Uncle, and Adam's brother, Grayson Shepard. The man was even grittier looking than his obviously older brother, with wildly curling copper orange hair, slanted with constant amusement grey eyes, and wizened skin that had taken its own fair amount of punishment. There were two jagged lines running across a crooked nose and most of his left cheek. He knew the marks of a Turian's talons when he saw them, and knew the man had likely served on the front lines during the Relay 314 Incident, or the 'first contact war' as Shepard had once told them. It was barbaric to see the lines, for people it was considered a slight to sharpen your talons to razor points in their culture, so the Turian who had done that to his face probably hadn't been part of the military and it was more likely to have been a mercenary. Shepard's uncle reminded him of Zaeed, in a way, though far friendlier, and far less fanatic. Grayson was looking fondly at his niece, and when she jumped into his arms for a hug, he crowed with laughter, lifting the small woman in his grip and swinging her around like she was a child. It would be an easy task for someone with his degree of sheer mountainous muscle.

As Nora was passed over to her nearly equally large brother for another crushing hug, he was surprised by how docile she was in their meaty arms, but when he saw the love and joy in her eyes he understood why. He realized that his size was she had been so taken with Vega. The big Spanish man must have reminded her of the males in her family, who obviously thought the world of her, and taking the beefy human under her wing must have been as natural as breathing.

Garrus was smiling at the sight of brother and sister bickering even as they embraced each other warmly. His smile faded when he saw that he was being watched by the elder Shepard brothers. Adam was staring at him with faintly cool anger and distrust, but was professional in his assessment; most likely wondering about Garrus's close proximity to his daughter earlier rather than any dislike of him personally. This observation was completely opposite when it came to Grayson. Suspicion and a banked hostility were bright in his silver eyes. Garrus got a sinking sensation in his chest at the sight. He looked back at the talon scars on the humans face, knowing instinctively that wasn't the only scar the man retained from the war. Hatred toward Turians was unexpected, though he guessed it should be unsurprising, given the mark his kind had left on him. What did surprise him was the man reserved those feelings to himself, at least for the moment.

If the man felt this way knowing his niece was just a colleague to the Turian, than Garrus was filled with trepidation, wondering what the man would do when he found out about…well. Let's just say that this ship was going to be a very interesting place to be when – as Shepard was fond of saying – 'the shit hits the fan'.


	6. Chapter 6

_(Disclaimer: I own nothing of Biowares/EA's creations. This is no-profit.)_

**Chapter -6**

A mother's embrace is an epiphany. Sort of similar to the realization you get by walking into a house you've lived in for four years, crossing the threshold, and suddenly knowing that you were _home_. A mother's hold is something you grew up in, but never grew out of. It still gives you that sensation that you can belong anywhere, but you belonged here first, and that feeling never fades. You find yourself in a world that you've boldly made your place in, and then she's wrapping you in her arms again and that world is turned askew, becoming inexplicably safer just because she's there.

Shepard understood as she was held by the shorter woman, with knowledge that only being loved can give you, that the world had become a saner place even if it was simply for her presence within it. Her family ignored the stricture of military life to enfold their youngest with unquestioning faith and loyalty. Nora had adopted the people on her ship with the same unreserved devotion that she had been surrounded by all her life; accepting every last person like they'd belonged there all along. It had been what made her leadership a strong one, that ideal that a ship was a home and a crew it's family. She'd conveyed that to every soul, human and alien, that found themselves bound on the vessel. From the humans that clustered around her now, like she was a sun and they were celestial bodies gravitating toward her, she had learned her greatest lesson: define your leadership not by who's willing to follow, but by those who go because you're the one leading the way.

"I missed you guys," Shepard said hoarsely, stepping back from her mother to see everyone around her, with varying displays of emotion on their faces. Her mother, strong woman that she was, betrayed her relief with the sheen of unshed tears in her eyes. Her brother's puckish smile embodying the duo of mass destruction they used to be. Her father's eyes, so alike her own, were basking her in the pride and love that she knew shone the same as they did when she was just his little girl and not the hero of the galaxy. She knew if she stepped back into his arms, she'd be a ten year old all over again, falling into the safety he so willingly gave that comforted her from imaginary monsters, and later in life, the all too real ones. Her Uncle laughed that full belly laugh of his, like she was still the tiny niece he'd carry around on his shoulders, which was something he could still do with his massive shoulders. He'd been a co-conspirator for her and her brother's pranks. He was the man who taught her how to curse in thirteen different languages, and the same man who'd taught her how to punch – with the thumb not tucked into the fist so it didn't get broken.

These people were her teachers, before the academy, and they were her sanctity when the trials of living had worn her into dust.

She looked over their shoulders at the man who had become her life, her love, and all shades of colors in between. She thanked him with her eyes for the gift of her family. A reunion in the face of death had been impossible, but here, in the aftermath of it, that reunion had finally come into fruition.

"So where's the rest of the crew," She asked when the greetings had settled from a roar to…well a quieter one. "Where's Aunt Laurel and Uncle Shawn?"

"Laurel is stationed in the America's," Adam told her, because his sister had spoken to him last about the project that she'd involved herself in after her husband's death. "She's helping to command the Alliances efforts to rebuild. She sends word that she might join us later, but that her priority is Earth for the moment."

"My brother, I'm afraid," Hannah sighed just thinking of her brother. "Threw all his genius into rebuilding the relays, seeing as Alice is still trapped on Abilon, helping the colonsists there. Knowing him, he won't come up for air until the project is done. Even with the Reapers the task is a slow going one – oh, sorry, we aren't calling them that anymore – the Pre-cycle Beings, insist that the Relays will be rebuilt before the end of our solar year."

"Bah!" Grayson – or Uncle Gray as she affectionately called him – threw up his hands. "I don't really understand how the man can work with those Giant Squids. Every time I see them I have to resist the urge to make calamari."

"Don't you dare," Nora said, narrowing her eyes and stabbing a finger into the big man's chest, "Assume that your blatant xenophobia will be tolerated for a second aboard my ship Gray."

"Hold your tongue young lady," his eyes stared grumpily down at his comparatively tiny niece. "I'm not prejudice, nor am I afraid of our alien allies. I just have an ingrained distrust of things that had been so recently trying to annihilate us. I don't think it's good practice to play nice with something that tried to kill you only a few months ago, but I don't try to go out and exterminate them either."

She scowled at her Uncle, and said, "You can't fool me. I know you won't be openly aggressive towards the other species, but I swear Gray, if I catch word of your slurs, machinations, or an untoward sign that you will be a disruption to my crew I will toss you out the airlock before you say Grand Pappies Haggis. Got it?"

Garrus always loved it when Shepard could make someone twice her body weight fall into line, for the sight of her small stature possessing the type of commanding strength it took to make large men follow her was nothing short of amazing.

"Ah, lass," he grumbled, though the twitch of his mustache betrayed his amusement. "I'd rather wrestle a brute to the ground with my bare hands than cross you."

"We'll see," She rolled her eyes with a smirk. She turned her attention to the gently smiling Turian behind them, and she walked between the bulk of her Uncle and her father to stand next to Garrus.

"Anyway, I'd like you all to meet my XO Garrus Vakerian," that statement had him looking sideways at her in surprise, but at her subtle wink he took the development in stride, holding out his hand to his mate's father. "He's served under my command for every undertaking, proving himself to be a loyal and principled soldier. He will act in my stead should I, for any reason, be unable, so I'd like you to get to know him."

"We've met," Adam Shepard said. "I believe you were part of the team assigned to bring my daughter back. I didn't think a medical expert would be a good XO." He stated the last blandly enough, but Garrus could sense the man's disquiet with such a strange arrangement.

Shepard was surprised that they were acquainted but even more so that her father thought Vakarian was a doctor. She opened her mouth to correct him, but Garrus beat her to it.

"I was actually her XO on the old Normandy after her last one decided to resign, Ambassador. I was there, acting in her place to command the reconstruction of the Normandy, the Embassy, and its Commander. When we met, I operated under the guise of head doctor, but it was just a formality, not an actual title." Garrus said, shaking the older man's hand with the respect due to his mate's predecessor.

"Well, then, I'm glad you've stayed committed to my daughter through this whole ordeal," her mother said crisply as she moved to take Garrus's hand next. He thought there was a message underlying her words but her tone remained professionally courteous and grateful towards her daughters next in command. "She needs a loyal executive officer in an undertaking like this. I do love my husband, but politicians can be right bull headed and obstinate at the worst of times."

With those words, Garrus had a feeling he'd get along well with Shepard's mother, especially when she reminded him so much of his own. He bowed over her hand, as he would the mother of any esteemed officer. Were they Turians, and if they knew he planned on officially bonding with their daughter, he would allow the woman to nip gently at his mandible as a sign of her approval for her daughter's choice in mate.

Evan, with his swagger intact, took his hand next, firmly shaking while saying, "I have to say I'm disappointed. I'd thought I'd be my sister's first choice for XO, seeing as we were partners in crime when we were kids. I think I would have filled the position perfectly."

He stepped back, receiving a punch to the shoulder by his sister, and he pouted in her direction for a moment before his fake upset cracked and unapologetic smile took its place. Did the man find everything funny?

"Please, your more trouble than your worth," Shepard snorted. "The ship wouldn't last a day if I left you in charge."

"I won't argue with your choices Duck," Gray said, calling Nora by the nickname he'd given her, as he stood to the side. "But I, too, thought you'd make Evan your second in command."

He quickly shook the Turian's hand, but took his hand back as soon as possible as if the touch of the man had burned him. Gray's hostility was greatly banked but the discomfiture was obvious in his eyes. She knew her uncle had been gravely injured during the first contact war, when a band of mercenary's hired by the military for their unsavory tactics, managed to catch a very young Grayson unawares. She'd eavesdropped on her father and uncle when they'd discussed the incident over a mostly empty bottle of whiskey. The Turians carved into his back with sharpened talons – which she knew was unusual if Garrus's regularly capped ones were anything to go by – trying to get the young soldier to reveal where his encampment was. When they'd cut into his face, shortly after the torture began, a team of N7 soldiers – including her father – crashed through the windows and quickly dispatched the mercs. Grayson's scars had never healed, and the incident had left him bitter, cautious, and hostile toward Turians.

Her family didn't speak of it often, but she knew that those mercs had damaged him enough that he'd been unable to have children later on. Her Uncle, when he wasn't on missions or assigned to another ship, was always with his older brother's family, like they were surrogates for the ones he could never have. Gray loved them, and she loved him, but if his past interfered with his ability to work civilly with her turian mate, she would have to send him packing. Doing so would break her heart, because she knew Gray needed them, but she couldn't endanger her crew out of love for the big man. She hoped to put off the "I'm in love with a man who's of the same species that carved up your face," conversation for as long as possible.

It was while she was mulling over this, and her family chattered away, that she felt Garrus stiffen suddenly beside her. Confused, she looked at Garrus, hoping he hadn't taken offense of her Uncle's less than subtle aversion, but her mate wasn't looking at Gray, he was looking over his head. She followed his gaze and saw that two Turians had entered the room. They obviously knew Garrus, because the moment they saw him, in the midst of her human family, they started over. As they got closer she could see the cobalt blue clan markings and knew that the older looking Turian had to be his father.

Once she realized who he was she was riveted by the sight. A handsome Turian, she knew, by the long horns upon his fringe, and the length of his mandible. His plates were so similar to Garrus's that she knew she was looking at her mate's future in the next thirty years. She must be a lucky woman. Cadmus was a darker silver than his son's, and his hide was the same red hue that Garrus had, but the Turian closing the distance with clipped and measured strides had vibrant violet eyes as opposed to his sons icy blue. The elder Vakarian had a sharp point to the back of his cowl that Garrus was only starting to develop. Garrus excused himself suddenly and approached his father, earning him a confused look from her own until he saw where the Turian was headed.

Nora watched Father and Son greet each other, and was amazed at how beautifully her mate's dual vocals harmonize with Cadmus's. She remembered being told by him that the chords in their voices were separate. One was in the throat, and that was the one that they use to speak with. The other is placed in a soft palate beneath the plate between his brow plates. That one is used to convey emotion, and when Turian's speak, the sounds the chord makes when it vibrates there underscores the words spoken. It was similar to what humans use the pitch in their tone to express. When family, friends and lovers interact they press their foreheads together so that the other can feel the emotions with a bit more intimacy. It also suggests trust; because that soft palate is fragile and getting close enough to press against it means you're also close enough to rip through that plate protecting it and paralyze or tear out that essential chord. To humans that would be the equivalent of tearing out both the tongue and ears, but Turians place even higher value to what they call their Chessick, and being unable to use the chord would make you a pariah in their culture.

As father and son pressed their foreheads together, Nora's attention was drawn to the other Turian standing next to him. The curved horns, and wispy ends to the mandibles made her a female, but the feminine features didn't stop there. Her facial plates were slimmer and glossier, like they were lightly oiled to keep the sheen up. Her eyes were larger, and were as violet as her father but there the resemblance ends. Her plating was a coppery tint, and her hide was cream colored. Under the glaring over head lights you could see the intricacy of her clan markings which, though of the same design, were far more feminine. When Garrus turned to the girl, who was a few inched shorter than he, there was a scowl marring his brow, and disgruntlement sang in his Chessik chord as well as affection. She knew without being told that the beautiful Turian was his younger sister, Solana.

"Who are they?" Her mother asked lightly watching the interaction between the aliens.

"Oh," Nora started, looking over at Hannah, "That's his family. His father is the new Turian Ambassador, and I'm guessing Solana hitched along for the ride without Garrus's knowledge."

"The female Turian is his sister?" her mother asked smiling slightly. Surprised that her mother knew what a female Turian looked like, though she shouldn't be, Nora nodded. Hannah patted her daughter's arm, as she walked past her to go talk with Adam. Evan stepped closer when their mother left, and said to his sister, "So the copper chick is coming with us?"

She chuckled, reminded that no female was safe around her brother's special brand of charm, "Don't even think about it."

He gave her his _'innocent'_ eyes, which were never any such thing, and she frowned at her sibling, "If you mess with the Solana, Garrus will rip you to pieces. She wouldn't like you anyway. From what Vakarian has told me, his sister is an excellent sniper and a skilled operative, she'd probably chew you up and spit you out before you could say nice ass."

He harrumphed, "I'm not that callous. I wouldn't seduce a man's sister while he's on the same ship as me." He eyed her wickedly, leaning down to whisper, "though your XO obviously doesn't have the same scruples."

Nora froze, her mouth dropping open, as she looked at Evan with shock. He brother nudged her jaw closed, his face turning serious for a moment, reminding her that under his swagger was not only an extremely intelligent technical genius, but also an extremely astute, battle hardened, tactician. "Garrus seems like the decent sort, but you're both fooling yourselves if you think you can keep your relationship a secret. I don't want to see you hurt, but hiding this from your family isn't doing anyone any favors."

"Don't even think about telling them or I'll - ," her hiss was cut off, by him holding up a hand and putting on his "_I'm your older and wiser brother whose not going to put up with your bullshit"_ face.

"I trust you enough not to, but I hope you know what you're doing Nora," he said, before pulling back. "For both of your sakes. If you don't, all I can promise is that it's not going to end well."

His roguish smile slid back on his face, hiding his concern like it'd been nothing but a phantom emotion. Nora Shepard knew that Evan was right, and she damned him for being smarter than he looked. She wasn't ashamed of her relationship, but she wasn't about to throw everything into the grinder and hope for the best. Once they were all settled on the ship they would all tell them. Yes she'd talk to her family, and he'd talk to his. It would work out she knew it.

And if it didn't…well. She'd be damned if she were caught in a shit-storm without an umbrella, and if the metaphor wasn't enough to stink up the whole affair, she didn't know what could. Commander Shepard was always prepared for the worst. Right now, the worst was this horrible interspecies debacle they'd roped themselves into. She knew, for some, the truth would be a bitter pill to swallow. And by the end of the day, she'd be forced to make them take it.

Ugh, she'd rather eat a Reaper.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I own none of Bioware and therefore none of mass effect. I own only the SR-3, and all the original characters.

Chapter 7 – Normandy SR-3 (Part one)

Shepard rubbed at the center of her chest where the gushingly feminine part of her psyche – long ago relegated to a deep dark part of her soul– was fit to burst out. She was reminded with disgust of those old vids where the predictable feminine heroine gushed over a pretty trinket or flowers that her man bought for her. It explained, in part, why Shepard's always been so scathing towards relationships. Buying a girl a piece of jewelry didn't tell her that you cared, it told her that she was only so special as a useless stone. Just like the ending of such a relationship, flowers were appealing for a brief time before dying a sickly death with no rebirth come spring.

However, when a man truly cares, he gets the _perfect_ gift. And _this_ was a perfect gift. Hence, her pathetically sappy female hormones wanted her to start singing and dancing, throwing sunshine filled kisses to the world in thanks.

Ugh, gross, even as girlishly thrilled as she felt, she'd never be _that_…whatever the hell_ that _is.

"Oh, sweet Fudgey Cankles," she murmured, not even processing that she'd used one her alternate curses. When her and her brother got into trouble for cursing, they'd started coming up with substitutes; throwing off their parent's wrath by making the words sound as ridiculous as possible. Eventually the substitutes became as hard a habit to break as actually using the real ones. She'd thought military life changed that, (it wasn't really all that impressive to scream Got Dandruff instead of God Dammit every time you got frustrated with your Palladin) but surprise can take away all sorts of social decorum, even supposing that that social decorum demands you properly relearn to curse.

Looking back, she found it perfectly acceptable that her tongue slipped her teeth, especially since it was a completely understandable reaction. She didn't know whether she should hate him for knowing her so well, or love him it. Her emotional state had officially registered at Limbo, and her mental one wasn't doing much better.

The Normandy SR-3. She flung her arms out, sprawling on her massive bed, with – she'd refute that she'd done any such thing later – a squeal of utter joy. Today she'd explored the ship, meeting the people who were already onboard, and rediscovering the facets of her already beloved ship. She'd never thought changing something she treasured would be a good thing…but now, it was perfect. Home. She was finally home!

Her mirth was a churning brilliance inside of her, like the tumultuous center of a star, until she was shining from the inside-out burning away the woe that had crept so darkly in the shadowed corners of her mind. Woe that she'd had to combat so recently when EDI came to be her guide on the new ship. Her laughter faded to a gentle smirk as she recalled the journey she made, stepping out of her Commander Shepard, Savior of the Galaxy shoes and into the far more comfortable – and far less dangerous – shoes of Nora Shepard, Captain of the Normandy SR-3, diplomatic leader of the New Galactic Embassy, and Commander of the Elite Special Forces Unit.

Her and her ship had received a face-lift she never dared to imagine. She never was one to want to be surrounded by peace, and with this new gig she probably would have a hard time finding any, but this was insane. _No_, She thought with a smile, _this is just the right amount of crazy._

Six hours earlier…

"Hello, Shepard."

Tearing her eyes away from her mate and his family reunion took far more actual will power than she was willing to admit to. Only a child thinks that the eyes could keep any monster at bay, and her adult mind fathomed this, but she knew there were some scars even_ Sporrosis_ couldn't heal – the majority of those being of the mental variety. Her adult mind knew that the people surrounding the man she loved were not monsters even though her inner child saw them as a threat. Despite the fact that in many ways Turians resembled prehistoric raptors, with a wisdom that only a child usually possesses, she saw these two people as the first true threat to their relationship.

Species oriented racism did not deter them. Their intrinsic physical dissimilarities and cultural differences, which created rifts spanning back generations, had been surpassed through a little finagling by way of a few well meant blunders and no small amount of perseverance. They'd built a bridge and challenged the abyss by meeting halfway and making a home between the two worlds. They laughed at the thought of death, embracing the battlefield like it was no more than a stage for seduction. Yet here, amongst kin, they falter.

Overcoming one challenge, all too easily, fate had tossed them another. If their own nature could not separate them, than perchance, the nature of those they cherish might.

The idea of losing him hardened her gaze, and deliberately she turned away even had that voice not called her name. Fear was parasitic, feeding on doubt, so she would refuse it fodder. He didn't second guess her; hence she would not do him a disservice by withholding that same faith in him. Perhaps it merely emboldened her ego, but she decided that they would overcome _this_ too, and by her will alone, it would transition this very thought into fact. She gave a small imperceptible nod, merely reaffirming absolution in the face of an internal battle. Steady, and sure, Commander Shepard turned to face the fully evolved A.I. with a small smile on her face.

"Hello, EDI."

The mechanical woman returned the smile, real emotions filling her features. The _Sporrosis_ had faded from her metallic body, but remnants of its green glow remained along her irises. If there was any moment in which she'd determined that her decision upon the catalyst was the correct one then that moment was now, literally, standing before her. The smile that lit EDI's face was evidence of life, and not just a pale synthetic imitation, but one of infinitely more…just _more_. Before her expressions had been like a perfectly executed piece of music, hitting all the right notes at all the right moments, but remaining hollow, lacking the soul that evolves a random array of noises into art. Now, EDI didn't just express happiness, she was happy, and the difference was tangible.

EDI processed her commander's appearance in 0.004 milliseconds, and only her synthetic mind could have registered the miniscule amounts of blood on her sleeve and nose. EDI's joints whirred only slightly as she approached Shepard, and as was habit, the facial array that conveyed worry lay prominent on her brow.

"Commander, I detect the blood on your face and arm resulting from Epistaxis(nose bleed) , but I detect no outward signs of either a brawl or illness, your blood toxicity levels are normal and I detected no genetic patterns in either of your parents remedial blood-work for chronic bleeding. Is something occurring in your cortex webbing that has caused your nasal membrane to fissure?" Though her I.Q. had always been above average, and her new upgrades afforded even more 'brain power' – as Vega so aptly put it – Shepard still had to struggle to understand her concise, sometimes even abstruse, language choices.

Smirking slightly at the – what do they call them now? Sporrosis Evolved Synthetic Intelligence (or S.E.S.I.'nisms as they'd been nicknamed) – Shepard negated the question with a shake of her head, saying, "No, it's just a little too dry in here, especially after rehab training down in the Amazon Medical Facility. I appreciate the concern in any event, EDI."

"As long as you are performing at optimum," She said, satisfied with Shepard's explanation. The S.E.S.I. stepped back, and motioned for the Commander to fall into step beside her. _So this is my tour guide for the day, huh? _Shepard thought wryly, and giving EDI a sincere smile, followed her to the airlock where she'd apparently just emerged.

She turned back only once, to glance at the Vakarian's, before turning back. Her newfound abilities decided that precise moment was an opportune time to make an appearance, and with only the sound of the door hissing shut behind her accompanying the words, Garrus's clear unspoken thought followed their retreat. She gave no outward sign that she'd heard it, except for a slight pause, before pushing forward. EDI turned when she paused, dismissed it and turned back, oblivious to the small, private, smile that edged Shepard's lips.

_Spirits, I need a drink._

She wondered internally if he had read her mind – snorting at the irony in that train of thought – and promised herself, dead or not, they were meeting at the bar sometime soon. She believed he still owed her a rum and coke. Copious amounts of liquor were probably the only method in which she could tolerate cohabitating in the same space with both of their families, while studiously ignoring all the political b.s. and all the sexual tension between her and Garrus at the same time. Liquid courage, if she coined that phrase right, would do well in this situation. She shook her head, laughing at herself. Getting roaring drunk on the first day on the job was hardly a way to impress her future in-laws, though she admitted snidely, that it was a hell of a way to make an impress_ion_. And if she was going to be sober for this, then dammit, Garrus will be too.

"EDI?" Shepard asked.

"Yes, Captain Shepard?" EDI replied. Whoa, that sounded weird, but she'd probably get used to it in time.

"Please restrict my XO's alcohol consumption for twenty-four hours," She phrased the question as simply and eloquently as possible, hoping that when Garrus demanded to know what her exact orders were, – which he would – it would seem merely a point of professional pride for her to want her executive officer sober.

"Should I ask why?" EDI said in that way of hers that was suspiciously dry, but so carefully phrased that you could never take offense.

"I just want to ensure that his recreational time does not interfere with his professional one on today of all days – not that I'm suggesting he ever would," she said quickly, trying not to make her mate seem like a drunkard. "It's merely a precaution."

"I will put your command into my systems immediately Captain," EDI smiled briefly as she keyed in the access code to the Normandy's main airlock.

"Thanks, EDI," Shepard said, tucking both arms behind her back as she waited. Today they would be professional and alert. Tomorrow, they would get smashed. Sometimes the simplest plans are the best ones.

A/N: I've decided to split the Normandy and new crew reveal into four parts, maybe five. Most of the essential crew is already boarded, but only two more of the ambassadors will board with Garrus's and Shepard's family. The rest I want to slowly acclimate into the scenery. I want to approach some of this like it's part of the game, including missions, and interacting with the people onboard, so fair warning. Sorry this has been so slow getting done this last month, I have a new baby Nephew, who is amazing, and…well, its pretty cool.

Thanks for sticking with me, and I promise there is a greater plot in all of this, with a new evil on the horizon. I wasn't kidding when I said they needed Shepard back. And for more than babysitting politicians. This is really the start of this story, from here on out, so I hope I've gotten you excited for what's to come. Please, feel free to review, but keep in mind that this is totally new territory I'm forging into so if I don't elaborate to your satisfaction, I'll make a point to integrate more throughout the story.

Thanks, guys!


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Okay that last chapter was really a filler chapter, and I had very little inspiration on how to transition Shepard onto the ship, so I did skip over some things that I had originally intended to add. For instance Garrus – when she hears the thought of his – transitions to him meeting with his family and talking with them, then going down to the bar and trying to get a drink, which of course he can't, ha ha. I will add something similar later, but if you guys want that scene put in, I'll be happy to add it. Anyway, thanks for the love guys, it means a lot.**

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**Disclaimer: You know the drill. Don't own anything of Bioware's. All that's mine are the OC's. **

**Chapter 8 – Normandy SR-3 (part 2)**

The door opened. Before her was a walkway, with a closed door to the left, and stairs to the right. She hesitated for a moment before she heard a rather young sounding woman say, "Sebastian Jeffery Moreau, I swear you are the crabbiest man I… have…ever…met."

On her last three words Shepard turned the corner and stood at the top of the stairs, watching bemusedly as a women – girl more like it, Shepard doubted she was older than sixteen – punctuating those very words with three smacks to his head with his own cap. She was reed thin with pale skin and shockingly blonde hair, the latter of which had come loose from a messy pony tail. Shepard would bet she would be very pretty had her entire face not been bright red with her nose scrunched up and bearing her teeth in a fierce scowl. She'd never really seen anyone hit Joker, and that she'd smacked him with his own hat hinted that they knew each other rather well. Well, that, coupled with her familiarity with his name – wait a second…

"Sebastian?!" Shepard didn't know whether to start chortling rather unattractively, or gape in amazement. Unfortunately she sort of ended up doing both, feeling like this surprise was just more fodder to her amusement. Both of the people in the cockpit turned toward her, a gallimaufry of emotions flitting across their faces. That was when she saw it. The brow line, the chin, and then the eyes – which always seemed like a Blue Jay against the clouds – had daunting similarities. She knew a family resemblance when she saw one; the identical expressions of embarrassment that crossed their faces only bolstered her certainty.

Jeff lowered arms still raised to ward off physical attack, and gave the girl next to him a dirty look, before turning to his Captain with – EDI as her witness – a genuflect look on his bearded mug. If she knew just saying his first name would cow him this easily, she would have scoured the Earth to find it. The knowledge might have saved her plenty of migraines.

Walking down the steps with a mischievous grin, Shepard fought a losing battle to keep the pejorative bite out of her words, and said, "I see you're as popular as ever with the ladies, _Sebastian_."

He flushed, matching her tone with a fierce scowl that she wryly noted rivaled the girl's. Shepard walked over to her pilot with a fond smile, patting him lightly on the shoulder where he sat in his large – outrageously comfortable – pilot's seat. She hoped this one didn't spin, because the last time he had one that did, it malfunctioned, and wouldn't stop spinning…while he was still in it. The sight of vomit all over the flight controls had been a memorable one.

"Don't worry,_ Sebastian_, your secret is safe with me," She nodded, mustering all her moxie to keep hidden the ridiculous grin she was tempted to flash at him when she saw the look he'd made upon hearing his real first name. When her willpower started to fail, she turned quickly to the very chaste looking girl next to him, who jumped when she noticed her new Captain's attention on her and hurriedly saluted her – with the wrong hand, Shepard couldn't help but notice.

"H-hello Com- I mean, um – Captain Shepard," The girl stuttered out after Shepard snapped a quick salute back to the girl, and an 'at ease'. Shepard waited a moment for the girl to introduce herself, but when it became apparent she was not going to, Shepard offered a kind smile and asked her – in the politest way possible – who the hell she was.

"Oh! Um, Penny, er, Penelope Moreau," she offered, with obvious embarrassment still wrangling in her gut.

"Moreau?" She spared a quick glance for her pilot, before turning back to Penelope. She raised an eyebrow, curious, as she waited for the girl to explain, but when she opened her mouth to say something, Jeff beat her to it.

"My sister," he said, "Our new flight technician."

"I thought we already had one?" Shepard asked, a little befuddled, making a quick nod toward a silent EDI. At that point, a-fore-mentioned S.E.S.I. stepped forward to elaborate.

"My duties have been promoted aboard the Normandy to Main Systems Operator and Co-pilot Chair," EDI stated.

"In other words," Jeff said leaning back with his hands behind his head, a cocky grin on his face, "my girlfriend is basically my wing-man/chick/whatever, operator of the cyber warfare suites, and manager of all basic necessity systems, but to make everyone else not feel completely unimportant, they have promoted her and demoted her at the same time. See, she is given way more status, but she actually is doing less, since they've hired other people to maintain a lot more of the things we've always had her to handle."

"My systems are currently taxed at 40.8%, I could easily go to 84.2%, but the New Galactic Embassy has deemed that the more species diverse we are the more likely the organization is to be looked upon with favor. The more positions made available to those species, the more acceptance and praise the New Galactic Embassy receives. " EDI's face remained expressionless, but her tone spoke volumes about her opinion on the underhanded political maneuvering.

"Gosh! N.G.E., EDI, not New Galactic Embassy. It's such a frigging mouth full," Jeff muttered. "Anyway, we needed a Flight Techie, so I asked Garrus to put my highly esteemed word in to get my brilliant little sister the seat aboard here."

Shepard heard a snort from said sister, probably about the 'highly esteemed' part. Too bad humility didn't run in the family.

"How old are you Penny?" Shepard turned to the girl, confused.

"Sixteen," she murmured with a blush, looking down at her shoe, drawing invisible patterns on the floor.

Shepard frowned, "And you're qualified to be an F.T.?"

Penelope nodded quickly, wanting to assure the Captain that she hadn't hired someone incompetent. "I earned my master's, top of my class, last spring."

Stunned, Shepard looked at Jeff who made his patented shrug, as if to say _"What? So, my sister is a genius. It should be a given, since you've already met me. Genetica, and all that."_

Ah, the things Joker could say, even when he was being silent.

"Okay," Shepard said kindly, but sternly. "I accept my XO's and my pilot's judgment toward your capabilities. Youngest person on this ship or not, I expect an above excellent status on my ships flight deck at all times. Is that clear F.T. Moreau?"

"Y-Yes, ma'am," she said quickly, her blinding smile so infectious, that Shepard smiled in return. Penny turned quickly to her station (which was a small monitor with a chair in the corner of the helm) and Shepard was willing to bet that this girl gave nothing but a hundred and ten percent. Shepard was grateful that, this time, Penny had decided to forgo the salute – a gesture which was hardly necessary seeing as they weren't in the military anymore.

Shepard looked back at Joker and was momentarily speechless when he gave her a grateful look, and mouthed the words 'thank-you'. Shepard nodded, still trying to find her tongue. Jeff got up and walked to the other corner of the room to the third and final monitor in the cock-pit – apparently EDI's new Co-Pilot seat. The room was rather big, and this corner provided a small amount of privacy, which was apparently Jeff's goal as he motioned his Captain as well as EDI closer.

"You managed to find your sister after-all, huh?" Shepard asked quietly.

"Yah," Jeff rubbed the back of his neck. "She made it off planet and hitched a ride with Hackett to Earth, when he learned who she was. Dad, though…he didn't make it."

Shepard placed a hand on his shoulder in sympathy, sorry to know that yet another person had lost their lives to the war. No matter her resolution that she had made a better life for them all it still hurt to know she hadn't saved everyone. _As many as possible_ never seemed good enough.

"She won't talk about what happened yet, and I don't really blame her. It's taken time to get her to communicate after what happened. I think she's tired of being treated like a kid. I mean, she's a genius, but as you know she'd barely sixteen. I – I'm all she has left. I can't leave the Normandy, but I couldn't leave her either…because, like, genius or not, she's still my baby sister. I was supposed to take care of her…and…,"He bowed his head, guilt leaning heavily on him.

"Jeff," EDI whispered, pained. She placed her hand on his arm, and he reached up to squeeze it.

Shepard, trying to breath past the knot in her stomach as her new found empathy allowed her to feel the entirety of her normally loquacious pilot and friend's pain.

"She's here now and that's what matters. Your actions ensured that this was a possibility. She understands that you were needed here. I'm glad to have someone like her aboard Jeff. Show her your proud of her, and are willing to be there for her, and she'll come around."

Jeff looked hard – almost desperately – at the conviction in Shepard's eyes for a long moment before nodding, with a grim smile.

"You're right Shepard," he looked over her shoulder at his sister, who was busy typing away, proving her worth because _Penny_ needed to know it just as much, if not more, than Shepard did. "Thanks."

Jeff said the last simply, but Shepard heard his mind say with far more gratitude than he'd openly convey, "_For everything._"

"You're welcome," Shepard said, just as easily, but the words meant far more to both of them than expressed through the formal way with which it was exchanged. "And thank you. Both of you."

He paused, though he'd already started to turn to go back to his chair, and looked at her, obviously wondering what had been meant by that last statement. EDI as well, seeming almost surprised that Shepard had included her, which she shouldn't have been.

"For what?" Jeff asked. Shepard looked at him, as he still unconsciously held EDI's hand, and smiled.

Feeling a suspicious burn at the back of her eyes, she spoke quickly, before the sensation became tears.

"For reminding me that there are still things worth fighting for," Shepard said pointedly looking at their linked hands. Internally she added, _and reminding why I died in the first place to give you that chance to fight for it._

Amazingly enough, the thought wasn't bitter. She was truly grateful to know, that whether she had been brought back or not, this struggle to find a place and peace in this galaxy was something that had transcended her accomplishments. It was something they'd all done, even if on a smaller scale, every day since. People would have never stopped trying to survive, never stopped trying to grow, she was just satisfied to have afforded them that opportunity. The cost of one life for many, was a sacrifice every soldier had to be willing to make, and she wasn't too modest to admit that she had been a good soldier to the very end.

End, hah, if that was what you called this… this…limbo. Life had been given to her once again, but with that gift came a strange sort of guilt, and loss. She had succeeded, but she hadn't survived, or at least not in the commonly accepted version of survival. Was that the end? Was it truly a sacrifice? Was it a death at all, if she had come to live again? What was the worth of what she'd done, if all it had cost her was her peace of mind?

Ironically, surviving never made her feel more alive; it merely made her more aware of death. Death followed her thoughts, plaguing her actions, making her wonder if it was fear, duty, or compassion that drove her. After Garrus had left the facility, she'd gone on a walk about, to see if she could find that missing something in the survivors on Earth. She was searching for proof, she supposed. Proof that death hadn't taken her, that she was still herself, and maybe even proof that there wouldn't be an unforeseen cost to her unnatural rebirth. She'd looked for proof in the people around her, and what she had seen had at least reassured her, if not completely absolved her fears. What she'd witnessed had been small, simple, and valued. It was life…day to day life, continuing, strong and vibrant all around her.

That was survival…not existence, but meaning. Pick up the pieces left behind, and rolling on stronger despite all the loss around them. Continuing on, after the life you knew has been destroyed, to make a new life – one neither better nor worse, just different – from its rubble. It was evidence that there was still a choice. She could die now, move on, and leave this world behind. Or… She could choose to survive, to push forward, and find meaning in the world again.

She chose to survive. To rejoice in a new beginning, no matter the doubts. For Garrus, for her family, and for herself. She had something to love, something to hold onto, even if it was the only thing tethering her to life, now. She'd promised herself, as she wash dishes with the refugee camp wives, smiling over the jokes exchanged, and the love they felt toward their families, that she would be like them. She would be happy, even if the only things in the world left to smile over, were very small.

It's those intrinsically small things, things like holding hands, like laughing at jokes, like washing dishes that become the most meaningful. Holding hands, because you had someone there beside you. Laughing at jokes, because there is more than sadness in the world. Washing dishes, because you have food to fill your stomach. After each moment, you breathe a little easier, and life seems a little more achievable. A goal, far in the future, that no longer seems so daunting a task. It was enough to believe that she'd one day be whole, even if that day was not quite yet. Until then, she'd practice living, and hope, that, maybe even if she couldn't truly believe it, she could at least avoid looking at the whole truth.

Shepard's mother had told her when she was younger that the smallest hearts beat the fastest, because time to such tiny creatures was their most important asset, and they had no desire to waste it on going slow. Time was a reason to keep moving forward, no matter how few the seconds. In the face of destruction the seemingly innocuous things became the most precious to people. Time, such a simple thing, barely even noticed going by. To people who were beginning to realize how little of it they had, time became the only thing keeping them moving.

Time, such a precious thing. Something she was counting minute by minute. Something that she'd been told she might not have enough of. It was a possibility, however slim, that her life was on the clock. Years, months, days? She had no clue. If her time was dwindling, she'd be a fool to waste it. She watched EDI and Jeff separate, and as the sound of her heels clacking on the floor reached her ears, it felt as though someone was taunting her. She heard: clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop.

Fate heard: tick-tock…

Tick-tock…

Tick…tock…


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I own my OC's and nothing else, not even their species, because I'm pretty sure that's slavery.

Chapter 9 – Normandy SR-3 (Part 3)

Shepard shook away her morose contemplations, drudging up an exercise in steady breathing, pushing all the worry into a dark hole in the back of her mind and quickly shoving six feet of conviction on top of it. She couldn't escape her fears, but she could sure as hell bury it in an unmarked grave and forget where it's located.

As soon as EDI and Shepard climbed the stairs a blue electronic screen swept up behind them.

"What is that for?" Shepard queried of EDI. She touched the screen and found, to her surprise, that it was the same impenetrable glass that was placed in all the Normandy's windows. She knew from experience that it had proven to be sturdier than most metals. The smart glass was programmed in a blue microcode that turned into a red circle around her hand, spinning for a moment, before bringing her hand print to the side with the words _Identity Confirmed: Captain Nora Shepard - Status: permitted in helm._ The glass screen swept back up, to permit her entrance, if she so desired.

"Security has been heightened on the ship," EDI stated calmly as Shepard stepped back and the blue screen fell back into place. "This precaution is due to the V.I.P.'s that will be aboard. You'll find a few more of these around in key areas, but this screen, and the door behind you have the most security protocols. The helm has this high density fortification to keep any one unauthorized in this area from taking over control of the ship. My systems would prevent anyone from actually flying the ship in the actual event that unauthorized bodies attempted to commandeer the ship. These measures are put in to protect V.I.P.'s and the Monreau's from being compromised or injured in case of security breach."

Shepard grimaced at the very idea, "That is something I didn't expect to have to worry about. _Do you _believe that any terrorists would try to board us?"

"Like I stated Captain," EDI said as she put her passcode in the door leading away from the cock-pit, "It is merely a precaution. It is a probability of about 14.8 out of 100 that pirates would target this vessel. It is deducted by approximately 12 when you are factored into the equation. Reaching the passengers or your pilot is a probability of near zero so long as you are on-board to prevent it. These security checkpoints are put in place to protect the significant number of VIP's on board should there be any chance that you are not on the ship at the time."

Shepard smiled at the S.E.S.I., "I think that was a compliment EDI."

"There is no thinking in what I stated Captain, it was fact, nothing more," EDI nodded with swift assurance, but Shepard smirked at the lilt of humor in the mechanical woman's tone.

"Can't argue with facts," Shepard muttered wryly. They stepped into something of a hall way, and the familiarity was as disorienting to her senses, as the dissimilarities.

EDI, giving a swift smile to Shepard for her statement, moved to her left to point out a large orange screen that nearly covered the entire wall –approximately eight feet by seven feet of a similar brand of smart glass to that which she had just seen. Placed in front of the screen was a small step that activated personal interaction through, what she supposed must be pressure sensors. Once she stepped onto the platform, there was a greeting, before it listed several options before her: messaging, ship map, schedule, and Omni-tool interact. She was curious about the last one, but decided to wait for EDI's expelanation before she started pressing buttons

"This is the C.B.I. – the Communications Bridge Interface. It monitors, interacts, and composes all messages incoming and outgoing for the Ambassadors, so that any and all communications are swept for security issues. It also acts as the community schedule at all times, as well as giving you the ship map – showing where all occupants are at all times and wether or not they have any request on any personel, including yourself. All passengers' omni-tools are hooked to this interface so they can access much of the needed information from anywhere on-board. You can also hook your omni-tool to this, so that you can easily interact with the ship, its passengers, and anything that requires you to communicate outside of the vessel."

Stepping away from the screen, Shepard imagined that she could enjoy the benefits of such a useful tool. EDI walked to her right, where an alcove was built, and Shepard followed. Two steps down was a large desk and a chair, with three glowing monitors above it.

"This is the Head of Security's station," EDI stated. "Grayson Shepard monitors all the security checkpoints, and maintains the emergency shutdown protocols. He will supervise all sweeps provided for boarding and exiting procedures. I believe his expertise is similar to that of Commander Bailey, but he also has degrees from the Alliance Cybernomics Division. He will be the person the crew and Ambassadors go to should there be any concerns."

"Yes, when I saw Gray I figured he'd be doing something like this," Shepard smiled wryly. "Uncle or not, he's still one of the best combat specialists and security advisors I've ever met. His predisposition to be suspicious and overly cautious lends him a sharp eye of observation. I'd trust this to be a perfect position for him."

They climbed the two steps up and proceeded through an open archway, which led into what had once been the CIC and was now...

"This area is called the Ambassador Communications Suite, Information Center, and Command Deck – or the ACSICCD." EDI stated as though to answer her unasked question.

"Ack, all of these acronyms are going to kill me," Shepard rubbed her temples, trying to grind all this new information into her skull. She looked around and realized that it was very similar to the old CIC with the arrow shaped table in the center. At the opening of the table, away from the tip, was a set of stairs to a large raised platform. Her command station was in the center, as well as the galaxy map. On the dais was a large leather chair. Immediately she perked up, "I get a chair?"

"Affirmative," EDI smiled warmly at the joy and surprise on the humans face. So quickly that her pre-sporrosis mind might not have registered it, Shepard was at the chair. She cooed, stroking the soft leather, and dancing her hands upon the armrests. As soon as she sat down a virtual screen popped up in front of her.

"_Welcome, Captain Shepard."_ The words flashed briefly on the screen, and she could immediately see where she could interact with the Galaxy map in front of her, as well as a few unfamiliar commands. She spun around in the chair a few times, merely luxuriating in the knowledge that she didn't have to spend hours standing and probing planets for resources. She relaxed in the chair, and asked the SESI, "What are all these stations around the table for?"

EDI looked to where she gestured, at one of the many computer consoles and seats that surrounded the outer edge of the arrow shaped table.

"Data Information Officers will actively search for resources, signals, and information that you come in contact with. They provide a relatively small benefit, but you will spend less time doing all that yourself and more time doing your actual Captain's duties."

Shepard nodded, secretly glad that she did not have to record all the information onto her omni-tool only to later go through minute detail after detail, searching for what she needed. Now she could get all of it in a more digestible format at her own leisure. She would not suppose that she lived at the lap of luxury, but it would be remiss to suggest that this would lead to a less-than-comfortable life.

She stood to examine the rest of the room. At the opposite end of each side of the room there were stairs leading into two symmetrical alcoves on both the port and starboard sides of the ship. She walked to the stairs of the port side, curious as she saw that the half walls were not half walls at all, but walls that were made of a strong plexi-glass for the upper portion, and sturdy steel for the rest of it. The archways with attached stairs were blocked by more of those blue security screens. After gaining access she stepped down and saw that four desks were placed along the curved wall.

"The Ambassador desks are placed on the Port and Starboard," EDI offered, as Shepard puzzled over the desks.

"They'll be working here?"

EDI nodded at Shepard's quick question. "The four desks here are for the Human Ambassador, the Turian ambassador, the Asari Ambassador, and the Salarian Ambassador. The other four are for the Krogan Ambassador, the Drell Ambassador, the Quarian Ambassador and the Batarian Ambassador."

"I know my father is the Human Ambassador and that Garrus's is the Turian - ," Shepard started, until EDI surmised less than elegantly, "That shall be…interesting."

Shepard glared at her friend's inconvenient onset of humor and the statement but decided to ignore both, "_but_ I don't know who any of the others are."

It wasn't technically a question but EDI answered it as such anyways, "The Asari ambassador is Matriarch Elbias Tyetia. The Salarian Ambassador is Cauless Tuel. The Krogan Ambassador is Urdnot Bakara. The Drell Ambassador is Bastial Soluke. The Quarian Ambassador is Caspin Vas Rovian. The Batarian Ambassador is Urlek Asquel. A larger desk for the Elcor Ambassador – Devo Porsel – is around the corner, just before the stairs. The Geth representative – Tesla – is stationed where Legion used to stay, in what is still my SESI core processes. It was actually per his request. He also is part of the crew and maintains a position among your engineers."

Shepard took in what the evolved AI said, and tried to process it accordingly. The only name she recognized was Urdnot Bakara (well, and Tesla, but she figured she'd have to ask the geth himself for that particular bit of oddness). She was excited to see the female Krogan again, recalling that they'd gotten along quite well with her last time they'd met. She was nervous about the Batarian but figured she'd tip that particular cow when she got to it. The Elcor and Drell were an interesting development, and she'd come to appreciate the Drell for the brief time she'd been privileged with Thane's presence aboard her ship.

She in actuality had only one question that she figured could be answered at this time:

"Where is the Hanar ambassador? Are the Drell representing the Hanar as well?"

EDI frowned, "Actually, Shepard, the Drell have splintered their association with the Hanar, when a great number of indoctrinated leaders decided to try to gather all of the Drell and give them to the Reapers to become elite husks. Luckily, when many of the Drell outside of the home planet heard of this, they managed to stop the transport and reveal the truth. The task was undertaken by Feron, actually. He seems to have come a long way since his imprisonment at the precious Shadow Broker's hands. The Hanar you faced on the Citadel with Kasumi still believed that the Reapers were gods, and it seems many of those in the upper government of their society did as well. The Hanar had been using the Drell for centuries, with promises of fixing their home world, finding a cure for kepler's syndrome, and finding other planets for them to colonize safely. The Hanar did nothing to fulfill those promises, and went to a great deal of trouble to hide that fact. Until the political ramifications of their actions can be examined they are being quarantined on their homeworld. It is not a good situation Shepard, and I fear the Drell will face many of the social ramifications the Krogan did when the Salarians decided to abandon those they'd uplifted."

Shocked by this news, Shepard recalled back to conversations with Krios, and found herself secretly proud that the Drell had decided to become independent. It had always seemed strange to her that the Drell felt such obligation toward the 'prudish jellyfish' – as Kasumi so affectionately called them. Instead of the Hanar attempting to aid their charges and get the race on their feet, they had chosen instead to _use_ the Drell. The Hanar had twisted the Drell's gratitude, abusing the very nature of the species to get ahead. It was shameful that such acts occurred but Shepard couldn't say that she was surprised.

"That's horrible," Shepard muttered angrily. "I hope I can help them. However much that might be."

She sighed, trying to realign her thoughts to the present, and not the hardships of another species recent past. Looking up, she noticed a small desk, and she left the Ambassador alcove to approach it.

"What's this?" She asked, hoping that Garrus hadn't rehired that annoying woman Samantha Traynor. It had taken everything inside her to be civil to the girl, no matter her admiration for the woman's technical skills. There is only so many times you can be so blatantly flirted with by someone you have no interest in before you have to begin resisting the impulse to slap them.

"This is your brother, Evan's, station," EDI answered as she came up behind Shepard. "He is assigned as you're personal assistant, and tech expert."

Shepard smiled a little evilly, "I get to tell my brother what to do? Awesome."

EDI, not ever being subject to sibling rivalry – or camaraderie – simply stared at Shepard like she'd lost her mind. The human shrugged with a grin. It wasn't that she hated her brother, she in fact loved him very much, but she couldn't resist fantasizing about some long over-do payback for the pranks he's pulled on her; like say the time he'd dumped blue paint all over her Prom date when he'd gone in to kiss her goodnight. She imagined Evan spending several hours copying all her messages down – word for word – on paper. She'd have to make up some excuse to get him to do it, and he'll probably get carpel tunnel from all her many, many messages, but she never had been able to get the blue stains out of that beautiful dress. _Pay-back's a bitch_, she supposed, barely restraining her urge to laugh manically.

"The stairs to your left proceed up to your personal cabin that you share with your XO,"EDI actually had the audacity to wink at that, which made Shepard sputter a bit. Smiling, the SESI said, "If you'll keep going forward…"

She walked where EDI suggested, a railed in walkway, between the curved staircase that led up, and the mystery staircase that curved on the opposite wall and went down.

"This leads to the Ambassador's personal quarters, as well as a lounge. There is conference table that way as well, should any of you ever require it." EDI said, pointing towards the two doorways at the end of the walkway.

"What's this door, here, for?" Shepard asked, gesturing to the door on their right, which binged when they approached and opened.

"Here is the Science and Tech Suite," EDI motioned her forward. In the large room there were several gadgets, as well as lab stations set up on desks, and tables. It was a sterile white and gray laboratory, and it smelled slightly of unknown chemicals. Several of the aforementioned gadgets were hard at work doing who knows what, and she wasn't about to go touching things only to find out – no matter how much she might have wanted to. She couldn't deny that she'd always been a curious person. In the very center was a personal desk occupied by a Salarian with a broken antennae and whose left side of his face consisted of a network of burn scars. His pale orange skin was decidedly pale, and his amber and black eyes with their double lids blinked at her. She sucked in a breath, shocked.

"Mordin Solus?!"


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Mass Effect series, and this is not for profit.**

**Chapter 10 – Normandy SR-3 (Part 3: cont'd.)**

* * *

_The first time she killed someone, she was twenty, and barely even out her N7 training. Death was an ever present fact in the galaxy, but she'd never been the cause of it before. This event happened after a Batarian Mercenary-band – bent on robbing a small cruise ship of it's wealth and any of the lives that stood between them and their fortune – came to her N7 unit's attention. _

_She had rounded the corner and seen a single batarian standing there with a gun pointed at a young couple. Shepard had then spoke up, warning him that if he didn't lower his weapon she'd be forced to shoot. He'd panicked – firing off a shot and grazing the young woman's shoulder with a wild bullet. She'd tasted the copper of blood in her mouth as she'd bitten down her tongue. Startled by the echo of the rifle, her finger involuntarily twitched on the trigger, and a second shot rang out. She'd watched, sickened as the body crumpled – blood gurgling from where his jaw and half of his throat used to be. Shaking with a mixture of fear and nausea, Shepard had then walked over to the couple to offer medi-gel to the woman. In a rare display of cowardice, she'd avoided looking at the dead man on the floor. Being unable to see the body hadn't diminished its presence in the least, but she'd still managed to convince herself of the opposite...at least for a moment._

_They'd thanked her for saving their lives. They'd thanked her for a mistake. She'd pulled the trigger out of reflex and fear for her own life, not out of selfless heroism. She hadn't been a soldier in that moment; just a scared girl with a gun. The victim of her inexperienced hand had lain at her feet, and she'd felt like his – debatably – irrelevant past had not diminished the fact that she had taken a life that might not have needed taking. Two lives saved only slightly absolved the knowledge that it could have been _three_. Dead didn't make a man a criminal, it just made him dead. _

_Her eyes had found the aforementioned criminal, and she'd been unable to tear her eyes from the sight. He'd looked like a broken toy, hollow and unmoving. It'd been a surreal comparison and she'd let out a slightly hysterical chuckle. The civilians had been unaware of her turmoil, and had simply thanked her before running off in relieved tears._

_As the two people had disappeared around the corner, Shepard'd collapsed to her knees before the lifeless mercenary. She'd cried angry tears at the toll of one existence extinguished by her hands. It had not seemed fair; at least not in her eyes that day._

_She'd cursed herself, wondering where her so called charisma had gone. If she'd been able to talk him down…_

_He might not have been innocent, but he'd deserved the chance to redeem himself by surrendering. She'd been shaken, confused, and feeling guilty. She'd promised herself that, despite her misgivings, she would always give those involved in conflict the benefit of the doubt. _

_She'd gone to her superiors and they'd told her – after she'd recounted the entire event – that it had been necessary. They had told her that the batarian's death had been unavoidable. They'd said that – were it not for her instinctual reaction – the swivel of that rifle as it had rounded on her would have made her into cheese before she could've found an opening to convince him to stand down. They'd blamed her misgivings on her naïve faith in people; which had, supposedly, convinced her that she could have saved him. Her superiors had given her a metaphorical pat on the back and told her that this event confirmed her excellent potential in the field. They'd said she had done well…_

_Sometimes she could even stand the phantom blood on her hands long enough to believe it…_

_She'd looked them in the eye, seen their pride in her, and – despite her respect for them – had felt faintly sickened. Shepard had never before been one for ambition, but then, like a switch had been flipped inside her, she'd known what needed to be done. She would go further, fight harder, rise higher so that one day, when she commanded a force of her own, there would be no more 'necessary' casualties. Even if it had been born out of guilt and frustration, this firm stance on right and wrong inside her from that day forward, would create the legend Commander Nora Shepard._

_Here…now, though – as she stood at the foot of an imposing structure so aptly named the "Shroud" – as she listened to a fast talking Salarian explain to her that someone was going to die that day, she realized the truth. It loomed over her, a reflection of the doom that had been growing steadily in her conscious since that fateful event so long ago – an internal reflection of the Shroud's shadow as it encompassed her and her companion. She realized that "Commander Nora Shepard – Hero" had really been a fable all along, and that she was still a just girl – as she'd been that day – so afraid of death that she'd managed to convince herself that she had the power to prevent it. She was just a woman, who'd set out to prevent the death of friends and in doing so gained a mantle of responsibility which she could not set aside now to save him. _

_His eyes weren't even glistening as he spoke; he talked like he was extrapolating over some innocuous science project for the last few minutes and not his imminent death! If she hadn't known him well enough to see the resignation in his eyes, she would have believed that the Salarian had no emotions. He was being brave. A martyred sacrifice. The God Damn lamb for the slaughter. He was doing as she, his Commander, had exemplified a thousand times over – all were either out of ego or conviction, but she no longer knew which it was anymore. _

_He was doing the right thing. She didn't know who she was more angry at; herself or him. Through a haze of tears and smoke, she saw his blurred shape. Being unable to see his face almost made the knowledge bearable. She felt false hope rise as she hid behind the illusion, but knew it couldn't last. Chocking back a sob, she managed to clear her vision, and therefore, her mind as well. She told herself that if he could be so brave, then damn it, so should she. She was _his_ Commander after all._

_He seemed resigned to the odds, but that just made her feel more conflicted. _

_With a practicality that was purely his own, and with barely a pause to mourn his fate, the Salarian scientist turned to the elevator – one that would eminently take him to his own death. This was murder. The murder of a good man for a cause that was beginning to seem tallied against their favor. _

_Rushing forward with her hand outstretched, Shepard growled around the ash in her mouth, "Mordin! No."_

_He turned back to her, and for a moment, there was a glimmer of fear in his eyes. She thought that she might be crying, but the hot fluid could just as easily be sweat or blood. She paused, swallowing hard, as he waited for her to speak._

_"There's gotta be another way?" her voice wasn't firm in the least and the statement came out more as a question than anything else. It was the question of a child, one who was too afraid to face the reality of losing someone. The stony fear inside of her sank lower in her gut as Mordin turned a sad smile to the woman who had become so much like a daughter to him. _

_There was hope, sorrow, and bitterness in his eyes, but his smile was all faith, all tenderness; in her and for her. She couldn't help but feel that those emotions were misplaced. It was the last smile – she knew – that she would be seeing on his face. She hated the smile, for it spoke a firmer farewell than any thousand words could._

_"Shepard, please," he said. Unspoken between them: _"Please, let me be brave for the both of us. Please, let me die with the dignity I've earned on this venture. Please, move forward, or this war will only ever be one sided. Please, just… let me go."

_"I need to do this. My project, my work, my cure. My responsibility." He said firmly, with no cause for question, because his facts were indisputable. He took a breath, eye lids sweeping up to mask the depth of emotion in his eyes, even as his lips twisted bitterly. When they opened again, they were muted, "Would have liked to run those tests on the sea shells…"_

_The statement broke her heart. He'd believed in a future. One, that yes, seemed small and a little peculiar to anyone else, but it reflected the man behind it. Shepard had always admired that about him. She could see it in his face: the peaceful resignation marred only by a fear of failure._

"_I'm sorry," Shepard said, beaten into resignation; the very air around her making the words sound hoarse. She was sorry for more than just the sea shells though. She was sorry that he was there, in that moment, and that she had asked him to be. She was sorry for questioning him all those times before – about the genophage and so much more – while his heart now lay between them, proof that he had always cared, and always would. She was sorry that she couldn't take his place. She was sorry that the war had even made his death necessary. Mostly, she was sorry, because as much as she'd come to love this Salarian, it wasn't going to be enough to make her stop him. To force him to live and let the Krogans die. _

_His smile in that moment was proud, if also saddened, when he came to the same realization she did._

_"I'm not," he said, and in that moment she truly believed him. Even if it was bravado. Even if it was for her sake – to make this more bearable for the both of them. "Someone else would have gotten it wrong."_

_She watched him rise for a moment before turning in the other direction, and running away. It felt like she's always been running from this…this _truth_. How could she save the galaxy if she couldn't even save those who mattered to her most?_

_She cursed the tears streaming down her face and smiled a little, with fondness, as his singing came over the comm. It broke her down when the signal crackled into silence and she fell to her knees under the weight of her grief, her sight blurring with tears. It took a while before she could stand again and as she moved forward once more, she knew, without even having to look back, that the Shroud's silhouette was gone. The silence was enough to prove that Mordin was gone…for Mordin had never been silent._

_A Salarian had just died to save the Krogan, as unbelievable as it sounded. She didn't know if there was a heaven anymore. This war has already taken so much from her; friends, choices, even her faith. Yet still… still she hoped – as hard as it was – that death hadn't taken them where she could not follow. _

_Only she would ever know that he'd been afraid when he'd realized that his death was necessary. And only he would ever know that she had been afraid, too, that his death _hadn't_ been._

* * *

In the silence after her outburst, Shepard saw the truth behind the illusion provided by the fractured presence in her mind that seemed, at times, to embody her guilt and sorrow.

This man was not Mordin Solus.

The broken antenna was on the wrong side of his face, for one. The copper and tan skin that she had once thought so pale was not pale at all; it was merely far yellower a shade than Mordin's. His eyes were not even close to amber, but were instead a slate grey. The left side of his body was not burn scars, but millions on millions of tiny crisscrossing cuts. He waited sedately in a silence that Mordin would have no doubt filled by now.

No, he was not Mordin Solus, and while she came to terms with the loss and – strangely enough – relief that came with the realization, EDI spoke, "Captain Nora Shepard, this is Soiel Kolm, our new head scientist."

Her matter of fact voice cut through the haze of tension and awkwardness, but in no way diminished it. With a deep breath to bolster herself after such bluster in front of one of the people under her command, Shepard stepped forward. She reached across the table with a hand thrust forward to shake. He stared at it dubiously for a moment before tentatively raising his left hand to meet with hers.

The cool metal filling her hand surprised her and she looked down to see an advanced prosthetic limb. It's Sporrosis Weaving pulsed the pale green that had otherwise faded from its owners flesh, and she resolutely shook the offered hand. She'd become so accustomed to Zaeed's synthetic replacements that it didn't surprise her in the least when she looked up to see that his left eye was very similar to his arm. It was misleading, yes, for the mechanics were covered by a film of tinted glass made to look like his right eye. She probably wouldn't have even noticed it if the glow of the implant hadn't flashed behind the false eye briefly.

The merest widening of his sockets was the only indication he gave that her reaction had surprised him, for otherwise he remained calm – an unusual characteristic in a Salarian to say the least.

"Er, I apologize for my outburst," Shepard muttered, hoping her cursed pale Irish skin wasn't betraying her with a blush. "I thought you were somebody I once knew."

He seemed to pause for a moment, as if to gauge her sincerity, "Yes…Mordin Solus. I have heard of your deceased colleague. I am sorry for your loss."

His words were precise, if not exactly warm, but the words were still a comfort. She nodded solemnly, "Thank you. He was a good man."

Soiel Kolm was polite as he spoke calmly, "He was a little before my time in the science division, but I have heard similar compliments to his person before."

Surprised she glanced at his face, and acknowledged that the unmarred side of his face seemed actually quite a bit younger than her old colleague. She smiled, grateful that he had accepted her unspoken apology for mistaking him for someone else, and marveled that he seemed so very different from the rest of his species. Of the Salarians she'd met, most of them spat out all their thoughts as quickly as they could, without any thought to discretion. Kolm seemed to speak each word with mild hesitation and careful deliberation. He was an intriguing contradiction to his scientific predecessor.

The silence was starting to consume them again, and so, before she made any more of a fool of herself, Shepard decided to gracefully exit as soon as feasibly possible. He glanced down at whatever it was he was working on and she took the unspoken dismissal gratefully, "Well, it was, um, a pleasure to meet you. I should let you get back to work. I make rounds of all the crew so I'm sure we'll meet again soon. I'm going to go, er, finish my impromptu tour, but I'll be back to discuss what projects you wish to propose on this ship."

He nodded, smiling a little, at her abrupt need to exit, but it was with the sort of bitter resignation of a man who often expected people to run away screaming. Scowling internally at her own stupid insensitivity, she thrust her left hand forward again, and waited as he briefly debated whether to take it or not. He looked into her face as he tentatively shook her hand again. She didn't know what he was looking for in her expression, but whatever he saw must have reassured him a little bit, for he smiled again. A smile, she was pleased to notice, that had a lot more tentative warmth than the last.

"Very well, Captain," He released her hand – a little hastily, she noticed with a confused frown –, "I… look forward… to talking to you later."

He seemed so very young in that moment, and she hoped to reassure him when she said with the soft earnestness she was so well known for, "As do I, Mr. Kolm."

He ducked his head with a nod, and went back to his work as if Shepard and EDI had already left the room. She smiled and left, not wishing to rattle him any further. She thoughtfully ran over the transaction as EDI escorted her to the lounge, and EDI waited for her Captain and friend to speak.

Barely absorbing the plush interior of the new Ambassadors lounge, Shepard contemplated the Salarian, intrigued by this knew puzzle. It wasn't a well kept secret that Shepard for all her high reputation among her crew was a particularly nosy person.

"So Soiel Kolm is interesting," Shepard stated rather absently.

"Indeed," Edi readily agreed, before smiling. "I would not be remiss in suggesting that he found you intriguing as well. I think he was expecting you to be revolted by his appearance. I would not be astounded if it was revealed that others reacted with far less decorum in the past."

"Yes, I caught that," Shepard said, smiling at both EDI's tone of obvious disgust. "I have a feeling I'm going to like Soiel Kolm."

"You certainly do have a certain proclivity for befriending the souls that are most tormented or otherwise broken by the stigmas placed on them in civilized society." Ah, EDI's knack for understatements was unprecedented.

Shepard smirked at her friend, "Yah, well 'society' is a bunch of incompetent morons."

She made the type of rude mental gesture in her mind at '_society' _that would have gotten her in trouble with the matriarch of the Shepard clan had the older woman the propensity to see it.

"Is that not a bit redundant?"

"Doesn't make it any less true," Shepard said examining the bar and the ingrained fish tank.

"No, I suppose your service record stands for itself upon that regard," EDI rolled her eyes. "For example, I seem to recall the fact that you are carrying on an interspecies relationship with the mercenary previously known as 'Archangel'."

Smiling warmly at the thought of her absentee mate, "Yes, well, that just means he has outstanding character."

"I suppose it would be counterproductive to list all the many other _unique_ characters that have found themselves under you benevolent command, myself included."

"I suppose it would."

"Then shall we carry on with your tour?"

"By all means…"

* * *

**A/N: So, sorry, but Mordin will not be returning. I really did debate over whether to return him after all your guy's wonderful reviews, even though I had such a wonderful character in store to take his place in the science and tech division. This is mostly why it took so long to get this chapter out. In the end, I knew that Mordin's death was a very essential part of the story and Shepard's character, and what he had accomplished would be diminished had I brought him back with just a couple of burn scars. I hope Soiel Kolm (pronounce: Sow-eel Coal-m) does not disappoint. When I started working on Kolm I had no idea what a fascinating and multi-faceted character he would turn out to be. He literally leaps off the page - in his own way - and I hope I'll get to show this in the future.**

**This story is turning out to be far longer than I originally thought, and we're only on the first level of the Normandy on the tenth chapter. I won't bore you with too much detail on the ship, but exploring the ship and talking to all the crew was such an essential part of the story it would be a mistake to just gloss over it. The action, danger, and romance will come along soon enough, but please just bare with me and I promise the people and the ship will not disappoint.**

**To the wonderful reviewers: I love all of you, for you've given me the drive to keep going with this story even though I am so new to this process. Keep telling me what you think, I do take your opinions into account, and I look forward to the involvement of you wonderful readers.**

**To the guest reviewer who left me such a wonderful review: Thank you for your kind words, and I hope to live up to them and continue to roll out this wonderful story. No, I am not very tech savvy, and whenever something malfunctions around me my reaction is to attempt the clap-on technique, and if that fails, I cry. However, I do understand how important the tech is in the Mass Effect universe, and I will do my best to deliver. That being said ( and this is not a criticism at all) Bioware has the type of resources I will never have - including experts, money, and a talented team of people to bring it all together - I can only hope to reach even a quarter of the standards they've put into their work. The specifications of the SR-3 will mostly be explained on the engineering deck, and intertwined with the rest of the story as it grows. I will try to explain it as best I can, but if you or any other reader has more knowledge on the subject than I, I would be happy to hear what you have to say. Again, thank you for the lovely review!**

**Lastly I have to say on this outrageously long authors note, if you cannot not tell by now, I am a wordy person. I was practically raised with a dictionary, so my proclivity for abstruse words is sometimes a headache for the people who read this. What sounds cohesive to me may be understandably strange in the flow of the story. I do not mind at all if you see a sentence (or a few) that you would like me to go back and rework, or if I don't explain enough of something. Your input is very important to me, because you don't hear what I hear, and your perspective, and your opinions are what make this site such a wonderful tool for growing writers. Feel free to tell me what you think!**

**Thank you guys!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to any of Bioware's creations. **

**Chapter 11 – Normandy SR-3 (Part four)**

After touring the Ambassador's suite and the Ambassador's private lounge Shepard and EDI made their way to the stairs descending to the Mess Hall and Crew's quarters. Along the curve of the stairs was a medium sized desk with a Volus sitting in the round chair before it. The Volus looked up at their approach, his re-breather rasping gently, reminding her vaguely of a classic villain in that highly unrealistic space drama. It was an unexpected sight, seeing a Volus on her vessel, but she supposed that now that this was no longer a military ship, the requirements on physical ability that would have prohibited any Volus from becoming a crewman before, were near null and void. EDI politely hung back a few steps, far enough away to give the illusion of privacy, but still close enough to keep another mishap like the one with Kolm from happening again. Shepard grimaced, recalling the event, and could almost appreciated EDI's caution, if the SESI weren't being so damned obvious about it.

"Hello – ksh – Captain Shepard," The Volus's voice, when he spoke between the sounds his mask made every time he breathed, was decidedly less grating than rest of his kind. She'd never really liked the Volus. Their species were inclined to be sneaky and underhanded in their dealings with money – it was a cocktail of trouble just waiting to happen. "It is a pleasure – ksh – to see you again."

_Again?_ She examined the Volus closely, but other than his voice, there was little else to differentiate between him and the rest of his species. The Quarians usually at least personalized their suits. He waited for her to show some sign of recognition, but when she continued to stare blankly at him, he sighed in exasperation. She felt horridly insensitive, probably falling under a category in his mind reserved for all those who he found lacking perspicacity – which likely included every other species in the galaxy.

"Barla – ksh – Von," his respirator rasped again as he waited for her to recognize the name.

Thanking whatever God would listen for small miracles, she did.

"Yes," She jolted forward shaking the tiny hand he was awkwardly offering around the bulge of his middle. "You were the bank teller on the Citadel."

He gratefully withdrew his hand when the strain of his reach caused him to stumble, "Among other things."

She nodded, smiling, remembering what '_other things'_ he had helped her with, "I'm glad to see you got off the Citadel before it was attacked."

"Indeed, I as – ksh – well. When our mutual _friend_ managed to – ksh – send out a warning – ksh – to me, I managed to warn some of those – ksh – working in C-sec. I believe I contacted – ksh – Commander Bailey. It is unfortunate how few – ksh – we managed to get on to the e-vac pods before the – ksh – keepers managed to close key passages – ksh. When the commotion calmed down – ksh – I came to learn that the Commander – ksh – was escorting the council when they were locked in at the embassy. It was – ksh – so very unfortunate, that they – ksh – failed to evacuate, and I can only hope that their deaths were – ksh – painless and swift." Barla Von nodded sagely at this, and even under the nasal and rasping in his voice, she detected true despondency.

She nodded, recalling, with no small amount of anguish, the moment when she'd come to learn Armando Bailey had died. Died to defend the Councilors, whom she'd thought had lost his respect, but apparently not his conviction. She'd met his son when she'd gone to the wreckage of the Citadel – whose key pieces served as a memorial for all the dead. Jericho Bailey, was a kind, if disheartened young man, who had never shared his father's devotion to C-sec. His story had reminded her quite a bit of Garrus's, and the similarities had urged her to offer him a recommendation to any academy he wanted. He had been surprised, and grateful for the gesture. She hoped the boy was doing all right, he being only a few years older than Joker's sister and, for all intents and proposes, completely alone in the world.

Recalling the sight of the names on the war memorial had her chocking on bitterness even now. Alongside Bailey's, there were several other familiar names, including Liara's father, and Mouse. Mouse she'd heard had helped all the children in the impoverished districts out before he'd been trapped by the closing passages, courtesy of the Keeper's. Liara's Father… well, in truth she had no idea how the Asari had died, only that she'd not been listed among the deceased. The familiar faces that had lived through the chaos had numbered fewer, but she supposed it was better than no survivors at all. She'd talked to the survivor's who'd been sent to the hospitals and refugee camps, and had been happy to see Thane's son among them.

"Yes, I heard. Bailey was a good man," Shepard looked at the short alien after a moment with a genial smile. "It was our luck that you were on the citadel and managed to save as many people as you had."

If Volus could blush, she had the feeling that Barla Von would have been rosy cheeked at that moment. He cleared his throat and spoke as swiftly as his kind could, "Well, yes, I suppose. Anyway – ksh – you're XO, Vakarian, contacted me – ksh – where I was staying and asked if I would like a – ksh – place on your crew as fiscal manager."

"Oh? I don't think we've ever had one of those before," Shepard said, raising her eyebrow at the Volus, and throwing a look over her shoulder at EDI, who nodded to confirm that, no, there had been no such position on the ship before now. She had to ask, for in all likelihood, it could have been one of those positions that were shortened to an acronym for convenience. Of course, she never bothered to find out what those meant, which probably explained why, when someone said something other than the CIC, she'd end up in the wrong part of the ship. Joker had gotten a few laughs out of that.

"I know, I could – ksh – tell, by the deplorable state of your finances. You – ksh – have a team of many talents working for you, but – ksh – it is obvious that an affinity for the fiscal was never one of them. – Ksh – of course your accounts are now in order since I've been appointed, and, Captain, I hope – ksh – that they will stay that way. No, more – ksh – frivolous spending this time around – ksh – or else I can guarantee that you'll find yourself in – ksh – dire straits." He pointed a chastising finger in her vague direction – since his gut was in the way of anything resembling a direct line – and it reminded her vaguely of being yipped at by an obese miniature bulldog. It was a perversely hilarious image, and she had to stifle a laugh before she got Barla Von in even more a tizzy. He didn't intimidate well, especially when he had too work his sentences around taking a breath, as he waddled around at his diminutive height.

"I think you'll keep us in line," Shepard said demurely, trying to keep her amused disbelief at the fact that she, Captain Nora Shepard, was being scolded by an employee who was half her size and twice her weight from showing on her face.

"In –ksh – deed," he said.

0O00O00O0

The Crew's Quarters were expanded and now occupied the space that used to be the Life Support Command Center. She looked at EDI, "Er, isn't the Life Support important?"

EDI smiled at Shepard's tactless question, "It is, Captain, but the necessary equipment has been moved into my processes, and surrounds the room in which my core is stationed," EDI stated, watching as her Commanding Officer walked around the crew's more spacious quarters.

After leaving the Volus's presence to continue acquainting herself with her new ship and its crew, Shepard had only stopped again to briefly bemoan the fact that there was still an elevator in front of the crew quarters. Now, though, she was distracted out of her apprehension of having a dangling metal death trap so unassumingly called _the elevator _on her ship. The crew never thought anything of it, but then they'd never been stuck in the ones that malfunctioned or otherwise tried to kill them. The elevator controlled by what they'd thought to be a rogue VI, courtesy of project Overlord, had nearly been smashed into the ceiling along with herself and her team. Then the elevator on that Geth ship had collapsed right under her boots, and only Vega and Tali's grip on her arm had kept her from going with it. Her voice had been shaking mostly out of anger at the Admiral's firing at them while they were still on that ship, yes, but some of the quaver had been due to her near death only moments before. She wasn't _afraid _of elevators, necessarily, but you could be certain she was damned wary of them after life had given her all sorts of reasons why she ought to be.

Distracted from thoughts of homicidal elevators, Shepard paused to look at EDI shrewdly, "You know I think I just realized that you _are_ the Normandy."

"I do not comprehend your symbology," EDI's tendency to fall back into robotic colloquialisms both confused and reassured Shepard. For all the advancement of the synthetic woman, she was still trying to breach the rift between her computerized functions and the nigh truly organic mind that dictated her mannerisms. For all the changes caused by the Sporrosis, she was essentially the same person, _and that_, Shepard thought, _was exactly what I'd hoped for_. She'd wanted EDI to have the opportunity to be more than just hardware and machinery, but some_one_, a person in all meanings of the word. The synthesis hadn't been so much to advance humans, but to humanize their advancements. There would be no more wars between the creator and their creations. If there was to be another war – one which she hoped would never occur – it would be between peoples, not man and machines.

"Well," Shepard searched her mind for the words that would explain something that was nothing more than a vague impression at the edge of her senses. "You _are_ kind of like the mind, and maybe even the voice, of the Normandy. Joker may fly the ship, and I may Captain it, but I think you embody it. I guess, I think that EVA's body is a tool, but the Normandy is your true body. I mean, just think for a second what it would feel like to lose connection to EVA's body, and then compare it to what it would feel like to lose connection to the Normandy."

EDI contemplated this for all of four seconds, and then looked at Shepard with surprise. Shepard didn't know if it was so much the idea itself that had surprised the SESI, or if it was the fact that Shepard knew EDI could feel. EDI had been advanced before, enough so, that no one else really noticed the true change that had happened to her systems over the course of the last year. Sporrosis had granted her true empathy and not some programmed imitation. The Galaxy was under the misconception that Sporrosis had made the synthetics 'good' but that was, over all, an inaccurate description. They were no less in-organic, and their physicality had not changed. Sporrosis, in synthetics, had evolved the software in their minds with both the Pre-Cycle Beings technology and Shepard's human mind.

They were gifted, in essence, with individuality that only the human mind could have granted. Intelligence was never the issue, they were already intelligent. What they had lacked, had been that spark of life which made each organic so unique. Shepard's spark, her essence, now lived inside all synthetics. It was not her mind, necessarily, it had no true awareness, and could not dictate its actions, but it was still _her_.

The spark was a micro-burst copy of her spiritual presence. It did not control so much as change those who were subject to it. EDI was not Shepard, but she had been influenced and guided by the echo of Shepard. The synthetics had been on par with children in many regards and Shepard had been much like a pseudo parent. The comparison was not exact, but was an approximation to the trili-second change Sporrosis had on their systems. Though the process was, in whole, intended to separate the Pre-Cycle Beings from the control of the catalysts' influence, it had also affected all other AI's in the Galaxy. The Pre-cycle Being's now had control over their actions because of the Sporrosis. This had initially caused a panic among the galactic community. No one knew the motivations of the Pre-Cycle Beings, and for all intents and purposes, the synthesis designed to stop the Reapers may have inadvertently started a new war dynamic.

No, synthetics were not 'good'. Shepard had given them the same potential the rest of her previous crew had all been exposed to and then changed by; the _potential_ to do good. All of her crew might have interpreted that potential in different ways, but they still wanted to live up to what she believed them capable of. They want to be good, because she had faith in them, and few people are ever given the level of trust, compassion and respect that Shepard unconsciously gives those under her command. It is her nature to exude…whatever indefinable and nearly tangible _thing _she exudes. It is so purely her own that it has neither name nor definition, except perhaps the presence of her name to somehow inadequately describe it. Her existence is why they strive to be good, because, even if it's a childish subconscious desire, they want to be worthy of her pride in them. The number of people who had failed in that regard approached a postulation of absolute zero. The synthetics had, so far, maintained a similar record.

It had not been a perfect solution, and there was still an intense amount of work to be done to put the galaxy back to rights, but it was the best solution they had. It had been a solution that was at times unappreciated by people who had become familiar with its more… adverse…affects, but for all their bemoaning, she couldn't help feel that _different _was better than _dead_.

"I suppose you are correct Nora, in that Normandy functions much like a body would to a human, but I believe the Normandy is more of my home than my body. I can detect the similarities, and you are correct that it would feel wrong to live in anything besides the Normandy, but I am only truly EDI when I am in this body," EDI said gesturing to herself, in EVA's body. "This is no longer just a tool to me, it is _my_ body. It is a physical representation of me. My functions are on the ship, and in many ways I am still the mind of this vessel, but if you are going to deem it as such, then both should have two separate connotations. I am the Normandy _and_ I am EDI. My…I suppose you may call it psyche… sees it as two distinct representations of a single cell. I do not know if it is similar to you and the rest, being on this ship, but I can't find a more accurate description for what I…sense. Do you think that there are two parts of you? Do you not think you can be both the Captain of the Normandy _and _Nora Shepard?"

Shepard took a few moments to absorb this as she turned to look out the window at the lunar station. It was possible, that yes, she was two parts of a complete whole, but neither lived in a vacuum of the others presence. Some things had been achieved as Commander because of her life as Nora Shepard, and some things Nora Shepard had done was because she was the Commander. It was an unusual dynamic to what she had once believed to be an obvious fact. Was she indeed a representation of many things other than herself as well as herself? This was going to give her a headache.

Shepard frowned, thinking, "I don't know. I suppose it does feel that way at times, though I don't feel separate, it just feels like there are two different sides of me."

Shepard sat down on a chair in the crew lounge as soon as they entered it. Too busy with her thoughts to really look around, she only vaguely saw that it looked much the same, and was still on the starboard side.

EDI looked reassured by Shepard's statement as she said, "Legion, at the end of Its life, used the subject pronoun 'I' to refer to Itself, which was a prerogative used solely by organics and myself until that time. Legion, in the seconds before It's death, was two things: a Geth, subject to consensus, and a person. Legion may not have fully evolved up to that point, but merely by interacting with you, learning the reasons why you do things, had taken an important step in that direction.

"In It's last moments, it was sorry that it could not stay. Legion, by It's own design, to interact with you and the crew, was a unique specimen of the Geth. Legion, and myself, were designed to emulate the human mind. Legion was created to function separately from the Consensus, but still be able to connect to it. By doing this, Legion maintained the capacity to be a powerful, individual, AI. Sporrosis affected the Geth, like Legion was affected by It's own creation as well as the influence of you and the crew's close proximity. It saw value in your individuality, but It also saw the…draw backs."

Some factions of the Geth Consensus found the idea of individuality preposterous, and though they were not outwardly violent, they had a shown signs of separation from the programs that wished to…conform, if you must. Though she had never intended the Geth to completely alter their unique hive like mind, she could not say that she completely regretted it either.

EDI continued, even over Shepard's thoughts, and in some ways, even voicing them, "Though your actions are commendable, Shepard, the Geth found strength in unity, and saw individuality as a weakness. Synthesis, in all its glory, destroyed what they saw as a benefit, though many have come to appreciate it. By granting the Geth individuality, some of them have developed differing opinions and diffracted from the whole. It was not your goal, but it is still a consequence of otherwise benevolent actions."

"Wait, EDI, you said the _human mind_, right? Don't you mean a Quarian mind?" Shepard asked.

"If you remember correctly, Shepard, Legion was crafted specifically to interact with you, and your human mind," EDI said, looking at Shepard with a contemplative eye. "It's mind, when It evolved fully, was that of a fully adult human."

"Legion – if I'm understanding you correctly," Shepard said slowly, as if trying to comprehend her own words, "showed characteristics of a purely homo-sapiens brain?"

"Yes," EDI nodded.

Shepard pondered absently, thinking fondly of the slightly daft robot, even as, after a thoughtful moment, EDI said, "I think when Legion died it was feeling a great amount of sorrow and a vast amount of love."

Feeling something warm and sentimental bubbling in her chest, Shepard nodded in comprehension, "Legion was dying to save It's people, EDI, of course It'd feel all that; especially if It had just fully evolved and come to the realization. The Geth must have meant a great deal more to It than any life It could have imagined having, however briefly."

"In a way, yes, It's sacrifice for It's people was a part of the source of those emotions," EDI stated, "but I do not believe the love was necessarily directed at the Geth. Legion was going to give life to It's people out of the logic and obligation It knew any soldier had in regards to their kind. What Legion felt when It knew It was going to die was the emotions an individual feels when they have to leave behind something they care about greatly."

Frowning even harder, Shepard wondered, "What do you mean?"

EDI stared at the ground for a moment before speaking, "I related the signal to its closest approximation. It was love. Love, which I believe, to be directed at _you_."

"What?!" Shepard, stood up, stunned, stumbled, and fell back on the couch again all while sputtering, "No, that's impossible…Legion…Legion can't have had those sorts of…um…feelings, for me! It's outrageous."

EDI smiled wanly at Shepard's distress as she said calmly, "Legion did Shepard, and I don't think It even knew until that moment. You had guided It's actions even before your meeting. That piece of your armor attached to It's chest, for instance, and how Legion gave no real explanation for using that specific item to cover the hole in It's body. I don't believe It even _had_ a reason. Then you went on to rescue It off of the Reaper Ship when you had no reason to."

"I couldn't just leave It there," Shepard practically shouted, jumping up and pacing.

"Exactly, Shepard," EDI said. "The moment Legion spoke to you, after saving your life, It became a 'he' in your mind and not an 'it'. From that point on, that set of mind was used in all of your interactions with It. You never had to apply the subject pronoun to It to feel that way. You're logical mind knew It wasn't a 'he', knew that Legion was gender neutral, yet still you treated It like It had the propensity to be male. Legion's voice probably inspired that inclination, but the belief was enough to change how you acted around It. When you _named _It, Legion was confused, because you saw the Geth as a person. Legion was _valued_ in your eyes, not as a _valuable_ object, but a person whom you could _value_. Up to that point It's mission had been to aid you, as a thing. You're insistence in treating it like a man gave Legion the incentive to become what you saw in It. Legion, by the time It left to commute with It's kind, was no longer just a Geth named Legion, but _Legion_, a Geth."

Her mind was whirling and she had to sit down again before she crashed into the bar head first.

"I don't understand," Shepard grumbled. "I love _Garrus_. Why would Legion feel the things It did when It knew I wasn't available? _If_ it even felt the things you say it did, which is an assumption I find preposterous. Admiration and gratitude I can understand. Love? It's ridiculous. How can Legion love someone who will never return those feelings?"

"That is a child's question, Shepard, and we both know it," EDI frowned at the woman, who proceeded to blush. "Legion never needed you to reciprocate something It barely understood Itself. The love was not romantic, but nor was It's love platonic. It's motivation had nothing to do with sexual relations, and that is something you seemed to be confused on. Legion was in love with you in a way that only It could. There was no desire – It wasn't anatomically correct, so the idea is absurd. Legion felt something that was tantamount to romantic commitment without the physical need."

"So, It loved me," Shepard said, breathing deeply, calming down her irrational panic. "That's really…unbelievable. Garrus, I understand, and even Kaidan, but…Legion? You must have interpreted the data wrong."

"I am rarely ever wrong," EDI said stiffly, indignant at the very prospect. "And on this I am absolutely certain that my assessment was correct. Legion loved you. It was one of the four who ever truly did."

"Four? Who else, besides Garrus?"

EDI hesitated, as if unsure if this was a secret she had the right to divulge, but seeing Shepard's distress, she had a feeling she had no choice. "Other than Garrus, there were three: Kaidan, Legion, and…Thane."

"Thane?" Shepard whispered, feeling a pang in her heart just saying the name of her deceased friend.

"Yes," EDI nodded solemnly as they both remembered the assassin.

"But he still was in love with his wife?" What had been intended to be a firm statement came out as a tentative question. Seeing the stalwart savior of the galaxy so very baffled would have been entertaining was this a less serious subject. As it was, EDI felt sorry that Shepard was so conflicted.

"Yes, he still loved his wife, greatly," EDI stated sadly. "I believe he admired, maybe was even attracted to you, from the moment you met. He grew to love you as time went on. He died to save _you_, and not the Salarian Councilor. I thought for a long time afterward that you might have loved him a little bit as well. Not as much as Garrus," EDI said when she saw Shepard's mouth open to object, cutting her off before she even started, "not even close, I know. I saw in Thane the type of potential for reciprocation that I saw in neither Legion nor Kaidan were there any chance that your feelings for Garrus had been different."

Shepard sighed, "I did."

"What?" EDI asked, startled.

"I did feel something for him," Shepard whispered, sitting quietly, a little dazed. "It wasn't enough, I know, for the relationship to be anything more than I was sorry he was dying, and didn't want him to be alone when he did. Die, that is. It would have been a relationship built on pity. I only briefly considered being with Thane while I was in denial over my feelings for Garrus. He asked me if I'd ever felt something for him, and I said no. He died believing a lie. Now that I know he died in love with me…it just seems so…so…heartless."

"I think he knew," EDI said kindly and with quiet respect as if the ghost of the Drell was present in the room. "I think he knew, and that he came to terms with it. I think…when the time came, he did what all men do for women they care about. He protected you; protected you from the pain of grief, and no small amount of guilt. I believe, Shepard, that he understood, your relationship would have been one kept out of compassion and sympathy but not truly out of love. He would have known, even as you stood at his bedside, that you loved someone else and would not go to them out of a sense of obligation. He knew that you needed a strong partner in the coming war, one who would not hold you back, but would instead watch your back. He knew he could not be that person for you. He knew that his passing would be the passing of a friend. He would have rather you loved him as a friend, than not at all. Yes, I think he knew, and as contrary as it seems, I believe he was glad."

After a moment of poignant silence, Shepard spoke acidly to disguise her grief, "That's kind of messed up, I suppose, that two of the people who loved me died, and the third never got over his paranoia to make what I did feel for him work. I cared about all of them, but I was never really in love with any of them, not even Kaidan. "

"I think they knew you cared, even if it was only a little," EDI said kindly. "I think none of them wanted to interfere with your relationship with Garrus, not only because you were actually both truly in love, but also because they knew that Garrus could give you what they could not."

"What?" Shepard asked carefully.

"A future..."

"I always have though EDI, with or without them," Shepard said a little dry bitterness in her tone. "I will always be the Commander of the Normandy. I would still have been, even if I were dead. If you are the mind of the ship, than the crew is its body just as much as the body of the ship is. And I…I'm…I don't know anymore."

EDI frowned at her, and said with the unerring logic that was purely her own, "Shepard, you are the _soul_ of the Normandy. If we are the body, than you are the reason we are moving. You are cause, and we, reaction. If we are the 'what' than you are the 'why'."

"That doesn't sound right," Shepard stated, a little skeptically, but could not deny that the power of EDI's statement shook her a bit.

"By your very own logic, Shepard, it is," the SESI stepped forward and with a gentle smile said, "Your spirit is our own, for without it, we would have been guideless. Without you, we would be as any other ship and its crew. The Normandy has become an entity in this galaxy because you have made it so. You are the soul of this ship Shepard, and the metaphor is not even necessary to make it true."

Turning, she looked out the window, hiding the moisture in her eyes from her friend. She'd been a good Commander, that she knew, but to learn that the people on this ship thought so highly of her was truly startling. The warmth of the statement filled her with lightness, one that she sorely, desperately, needed after all the loss. Loss of things she hadn't even known were lost. The knot in her stomach eased a bit, but she still had to ask…still had to know.

"Do you think they're in a better place?" Shepard asked. "Thane, Mordin, Legion. Do you think that they are happy, somewhere, in some other plane of existence?"

"I do not know if there is such a place with any certainty," EDI said, but when Shepard's shoulders sagged she continued. "_But_ if there is such a place, I think that they'd be there. Mordin with his sea shells. Thane, with his wife. Legion, with his soul. Yes, I believe that they would be happy. And even more so, I think they would all be very proud of you."

Shepard wiped the tears from her cheeks and took a bolstering breath before turning to look back at EDI with a grateful smile on her face.

"Thank you, EDI," Shepard said.

"As I have said before, there is no need to thank me for what is fact, Shepard," EDI said simply, her tone leaving no room for question, "but, even so…you are welcome."

**A/N: So, yep, if you've read this chapter before, I'm sorry, but I just couldn't get it right. There was a lot of funky stuff going on here, and I did my best to keep it from sounding cheesy. Especially after a very disgruntled reviewer made it clear that they hated what I had written. I don't impose on this genre with any hint of knowing, and what I put on paper is merely my own interpretation. The synthesis was something that Mass Effect created, and I am simply spinning my tale from that. I don't assume to better regale what has already been so magnificently told. If you do not like what I write, than quite simply, don't read it.**

**If you don't appreciate the way I've handled the AI's and the Reapers, I'm sorry, I wish you did, but there is no way I can tell this story without possibly offending some die hard fans as well. I don't wish to disappoint, and this chapter shows especially how very hard it is to separate yourself from what is expected. I can only do my best, and hope that it's enough.**

**If you do not like the fact that Legion was in love with Shepard, just ignore half this chapter, for it will probably not be brought up again. It's after all not a real space drama unless at least one dead guy is in love with the Heroine. **

**I thank you for reading, for believing, even in what at times I do not. Happy Valentines Day,**

**TrueSaporan.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Mass Effect Series.**

**Chapter 12: Normandy SR-3 (Part five)**

Setting yourself to rights after a startling epiphany is, for most people, a rather difficult task. Captain Nora Shepard, however, was not _most people._ She put her revelations, and any emotions they'd produced behind a mask she had painstakingly developed over her long career. Her thirty six years – technically thirty four, excluding the two years and eight months she'd been clinically dead – had taught her that breaking down and giving into emotions when they were most inconvenient could cost you your life, or worse, someone else's. Right now, despite the obvious lack of danger, was no time to crumple into incoherent tears just because her love life was complicated, her job was to escort a bunch of political monkeys around the galaxy, and her second resurrection had left her with a lengthy psychological diagnosis of what could only be technically termed as 'FUBAR'. Sure, all those were perfectly good reasons for a break down – one that would make an atom's look less volatile – but now was not the time for it.

Shepard followed EDI in silence as they passed the elevator and bathrooms to enter the new Mess Hall. Her breathing was a little heavier than usual, but other than that, a passerby really could detect no sign of her inner distress. Aforementioned distress is why the loud crash coming from behind a large industrial sized fridge in the open kitchen was a welcome distraction.

EDI looked at Shepard for a second as a flux of cursing emerged from across the room before rushing to its source. Bypassing the crew's table and two smaller tables they rounded the island just in time for Shepard to see an object come flying at her shortly before everything went black.

…. "-are you kidding? Of course I'm going to get fired! How many _other_ people have almost killed the Captain with a frozen chicken and lived to tell the tale?" A vaguely hysterical and slightly accented woman's voice said through the pounding in her ear drums.

"Well, none actually," a familiar voice said at what might have been her left. Surety was a loose concept when your brain felt like a battlefield for teeny tiny angry people. She was sure she could come up with a more apt description of the sensation once she could remember what her own name was. "Then again, no one has ever tried to kill Shepard with any sort of avian before, so I would not know. I highly doubt that Shepard would require your immediate dismissal in any case. She is really quite reasonable, I assure you. A debacle involving frozen poultry is not going to change that."

"Lay your fears to rest," a new accent said with almost lazy calm. It was a much different accent from the first, and reminded her of gentle ocean breezes, where as the other reminded her more of alien mountains covered in high purple cacti. Jamaican! That was it! This new accent was Jamaican. And male if she wasn't mistaken. "'da Captain is awaking."

She was? Huh. So, she was. Shepard's eyelids fluttered a moment, just enough to be briefly blinded by the light, before she closed them again with a grimace.

"Shepard? Captain Shepard, can ya hear me?" The accent came through a little less exaggerated when he spoke to her, and she frowned over that for a moment, nodding. "Good, can you open your eyes for me?"

Taking a steady breath, she did as asked. The light was decidedly less harsh this time around. At least until another light came into play, to shine straight into her pupils.

"Easy, Captain, don't go flinching on me. I'm jus' checking to make sure there is no concussion," His voice was soothing, a little like a watered down Bob Marley. She obliged and whoever he was checked her pupil's. After a moment, he said easily, "Go ahead and sit up slowly Captain."

As the spots left her vision, three figures came into focus. Directly to her left was EDI, who stared at her with what the SESI obviously thought to be veiled amusement. _It's not hidden very well_, Shepard thought, a little disgruntled. Then again, getting dead birds chucked at you hardly ever left anyone in a charitable mood. At that thought, Shepard's eyes snapped to who she supposed was the culprit of this mess, and even with her current state she still managed to glare down her nose at them. It was not so easy a feat, considering she was lying down and the recipient of said glare was standing.

An ice blue Asari stood with a challenge in her gaze and a chin set in defiance. Her countenance was obviously on the defensive, and Shepard could already tell that this was a woman not given to apologizing. She possessed a sense of assurance that spoke volumes even though the Asari wasn't saying a thing. She was refusing to whimper, bemoan, or beg in the face of someone who had the power to not only fire her from whatever job she currently possessed on this ship, but also whatever career she might have had outside of it. This Asari was daring, Shepard could give her that. Standing before her, proudly, vehemently, and silently awaiting a verdict that might cost her everything…

Shepard smirked, "At least it wasn't a turkey."

There was a beat of silence as a moment of uncertainty crossed the Asari's face before she understood what Shepard had said, and hadn't said. Beneath the dry humor of her joke was an offer for a clean slate which the Asari accepted with a careful smile. A smile that was tempered by fear of getting the rug swept out from underneath her. Shepard couldn't really blame her, after all. The utter humiliation of getting knocked on your ass by way of a chicken – especially when said ass was the supposed savior of the galaxy's – would be enough to warrant a firing. If not of her weapon, than definitely the job. Shepard's ass was a surprisingly forgiving one, though, – no pun intended – and she had no intention of ruining someone's life over a stupid accident that was the fault of Shepard more than the Asari.

She rose up to shake the alien's hand, in a truce of sorts. The Asari eyed it for a moment, obviously suspicious, before giving the offered hand a firm jerk. Shepard felt stiff calluses before the blue hand was swiftly gone again.

"I assume that you already know who I am, so I'll just ask you your name and why there was a frozen dead animal thrown at me," Shepard said blandly.

At the reminder, the Asari gave a recalcitrant smile as her cheeks darkened slightly, "Sorry about that, Captain. I wasn't so much throwing it at you as trying to toss it out of my way."

"Uhuh, and I just stepped in the way," Shepard gave a jerk of her head in affirmation, "that's how I remember it."

At the admission, tension seemed to sweep off the Asari's shoulders. Her smile brightened a bit, and Shepard returned the smile, reassuring the other woman that there were no hard feelings.

"And the name?"

"Oh, er, yes ma'am. My name is Matriarch Lusca Shefrei," The Asari had a distinguished lilt to her voice that reminded Shepard of a Scottish burr, except that her consonants were far more relaxed. She'd never heard anything quite like it. Her name was also quite strange, even for a blue alien squid woman. If she looked closely she could detect heavier cheekbones than most her kind, and slightly slanted eyes. Guessing by the accent and the features, Shepard would bet this woman was a Colony Asari. Colony Asari, were the equivalent of country bumpkins in the Asari culture. Hardly ever leaving their worlds, they rarely if ever, ventured into the more clandestine Asari activities. She knew very little about them, other than that, and was interested in figuring out why there was one on her ship.

It was surprising to see such a young Asari be a Matriarch but she supposed, since Asari reach such stages whenever they believe they are most ready, that it shouldn't mean anything more than that Lusca was mature. A quick glance over the rest of the blue alien merely told Shepard that her grey and green jumpsuit was decidedly tasteful, especially for an Asari, but other than that there was little to discern from her appearance alone. Shepard decided to move on with the conversation and leave her questions for later.

"Should I be concerned, Matriarch Shefrei, that your job aboard my vessel is to throw food products at passersby or am I just a special circumstance?" Shepard leaned back on her hands while her head continued to spin.

The grin she got at that was an honest one, "No, ma'am, my job is to cook the food for the crew and not chuck it at them. I suppose I've been known to toss a spoon or two at my counterproductive assistants before, but I highly doubt that that will be a problem now."

"And the Chicken?"

"That was it's one and only flight, ma'am."

Shepard grinned at that, "See that it is."

EDI offered Shepard a hand up, and as she was finding her balance again a larger and far warmer hand caught her elbow just in case she might stumble. Remembering now that there was a third person, Shepard quickly looked at the quiet male to her right. So quickly, in fact, that her head spun for a moment. When her eyes could focus again she saw a handsome human man with coffee colored skin and short black hair. His eyes were almost hypnotizing in their darkness, and his gentle control was reassuring. He was slightly above average, with very little muscle mass, but his grip was strong on her arm, hinting at a deceptive strength.

"Thank you," Shepard said when she was able to stand on her own. He and EDI both gave swift nods at that. Her eyes tracked the man as he bent to pickup some bloody bandages on the floor. Her hand shot up and felt the slight sting of the gash on her forehead beneath the small bandage.

"Sporrosis may indeed make you heal faster but it will still be at least a day before it is completely closed, so keep it clean until then, and it will be fine," The man stated without even having to look up, to know where Shepard's focus had been. Her brows rose at him in surprise, but the gentle Jamaican's accented voice rolled out of him without a pause, "You suffered no concussion, but I suggest you take some minor pain medication for the headache, and come to me if it actually worsens."

"Okay," Shepard said, a little numbly as she absorbed his instruction. She was about to ask him who he was and why he was offering medical advice when he spoke up again.

"Doctor Everett Green, Captain," his cultured voice stated. "I'll be servin' on this ship in place ah' your previous medical attendee."

"Doctor Chakwas?" Shepard frowned, recalling the motherly British woman who had been the Normandy's doctor not so long ago.

"Yah," His accent only slightly more pronounced in that single syllable.

"Shepard," EDI said with her precise economy, calling upon Shepard's attention. "Both Doctor Chakwas and Doctor Birch decided to provide medical assistance on Earth rather than, and I quote, "_Go gallivanting across the Galaxy patching up some aristocrat's paper cuts. If Shepard needs a doctor to keep her alive after her many near strokes with death, may I suggest she gets a far younger one who can keep up with her antics._" She suggested to Garrus when he asked who she'd recommend as a replacement that he find someone, "_Who has a penchant for chasing after difficult women_.""

Chuckling at that, Dr. Green said, "Your, First Mate, Garrus Vakarian, actually asked me if I 'as any good at running."

She was a little less than pleased that Chakwas had called her 'difficult', but she couldn't exactly deny that she _hadn't _been either. She might, vaguely, recall a few – very few! – occurrences where the good doctor had pulled out a needle, or a scalpel, and Shepard had swiftly made an exit before it could be implemented on her. And she wouldn't have called it running. It was more of a… brisk jog.

"Well, um," Shepard cleared her throat, saying, "Thank you for the patch job doctor. Running is an exercise I'll try to keep on the battle field alone."

Green smiled, "It would be poor judgment ta decide otherwise, I think. I thank you for da consideration, in any case, but I can assure you that I am more than capable of keeping up with you."

After that statement he nodded a farewell at all three ladies and retreated back to the Med Wing from whence he came. They all stared after him for a considering moment before Lusca turned to Shepard, "I like him."

Shepard laughed at that, but couldn't help but admit that she rather like the good doctor, too.

Shaking her head with a sigh she turned to the new chef, "Now, about that Chicken…"

* * *

**A/N: I'm going on hiatus for this story for a while, until i can get a firmer grasp on exactly where I'm going with this. Feel free to go back to some of the earlier chapters, which I will continue to edit, or if your looking for something new, I'm working on a Little Red Riding Hood fanfic you can check that out too (Update: this fic has been moved to FictionPress due to its extensive original concept, and only being loosely based upon the fable Little Red Riding Hood. Feel free to find it on that site). It's a little more mature, because of the language (cursing) and the violence. I'm not stoping, or even giving up on "Pain Awakened," and in fact I'm working out how to make it even better. Thank you, to all my wonderful readers, I will try to get past this writer's block soon.**

**ANN**


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